


The Boogeyman

by Caladrius



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, BAMF Dean Winchester, BAMF Sam Winchester, Boogeyman - Freeform, Brother Feels, Canon Compliant, Case Fic, Demons, Drunken Confessions, Gen, Ghosts, Horror, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Monsters, Mystery, Redemption, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 02, Weechesters, foreshadowing for future seasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 03:06:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 119,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/878686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caladrius/pseuds/Caladrius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sam was 9-years-old, something stalked him nightly from the closet.  His father put a gun into his hand and told him to face his fears and take action.  Will Dean be able to save his little brother from the ghost of that first traumatic mission 14 years later?</p><p>This is a coming of age story about a time that changed both brothers, and tackles unresolved issues both have with the father who drew them down this path.  It's a journey that pans back and forth from the time Sam was nine through the events of Season 2 until just before the season finale. </p><p>And, oh yes, it's about the boogeyman...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue and Ch 1: "Bring It On Home"

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by an exchange between Sam and Dean in the Pilot episode of Supernatural.
> 
> Sam: When I told Dad I was scared of the thing my my closet, he gave me a .45  
> Dean: Well, what was he supposed to do?  
> Sam: I was nine-years-old. He was supposed to say, "don't be afraid of the dark."  
> Dean: Don't be afraid of the dark? What, are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark; you know what's out there.
> 
> Okay...here it goes...holy crap, I'm finally going to post the first part of this freaking novel...
> 
> *holds breath*
> 
> Much love and thanks go to Agelade who told me it was good, kept me going, gave me inspiration, and helped me edit this huge collection of over 200 Google doc pages. THANK YOU! YOU ARE MY GODDESS! *bows and grovels*
> 
> -Caladrius

 

 

 

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

**Prologue**

**June 6, 1993**

_A dark man sits alone at a table with a bottle of whiskey. The table is covered with papers from old books, computer printouts, sketches, notes, maps, a journal._

_Specific and thorough research._

_The man stares at it all for long moments. He puts the bottle to his lips, takes a hot swig, and feels the burn of the liquid ignite a memory._

_A shudder is wrung out of his lungs. He doesn't want to look at the table anymore. He wants to set it all on fire because he is ashamed, and this work reminds him of dark things._

_Burn it. Destroy it. Let it die with the past..._

_The anger surges up like a volcano, and he backhands the bottle to hurtle against a wall and break. He grabs a fistful of the paper, careless of its delicacy, and crumbles what he can._

_He is consumed with self-loathing on a good day. Right now, he can barely stomach himself._

_His gaze falls on his hand. A date scrawled on piece of notebook paper in his grip manages to squeeze through a gap in his fist._

_The man pushes the anger deep down inside where he keeps it locked away. His hands are casual now as he sweeps the research together, neatly, gently flattening out what he nearly destroyed._

Sammy...

_That is not a tear on his face. A man shouldn't cry._

_He has to make a plan to save his son..._

* * *

**Chapter 1: "Bring It On Home"**

**NOW: May 1, 2007**

_The kid is delusional if he thinks he is gonna do this alone._

That is the thought that anchors Dean to the present.

"There it is."

Dean stops the Impala and turns the key though he keeps the headlights running. He and Sam lean forward together to study the slightly tilting structure in the darkness before them. The silence is heavy with memories that threaten to collapse the precariously balanced roof.

This is a strange and terrible kind of homecoming for Dean because of what this room did to Sam-what it's still doing to him-to them both. Despite the constant moving when they were kids, Dean has a pretty good head when it comes to places they'd lived, and this one, in particular, was engraved darkly and indelibly into his memory: They had lived here for only five days during the spring fourteen years ago when Sam was almost 10 and Dean 14.

Dean turns his head to the left and squints up at the barely visible frame of a neon sign that had once said "Osseo Motel" about twenty feet away. Sam stares straight ahead at the door of one room in particular. Room 23. The door plaque had fallen off, but this was the room, and Dean had driven right to it even though it had been so long, even though it was dark. Like he could ever forget it.

"How long did you say this place has been abandoned?"

"Six years," Sam answers. His voice is neutral, carefully so. Controlled.

The sheer force of Sammy just trying to...to deal with his memories strikes Dean hard. It shakes loose the memory a big brother wants so much to forget-

_Sammy is hurting. Hurting bad in his arms. He's not looking at anything, not speaking anymore, just staring like he's dead inside and he just...he thinks it's his fault. And it's not. I swear it's not._

" _Don't, Sammy. Don't. Blame me. Blame me."_

And after Sam woke up, Dad never talked about it again. Ever. He never let it go, but he never ended it.

Dean frowns at the motel, feels the old anger, still clinging, rise up.

_It was always about the lesson, wasn't it, Dad? Goddammit._

"Six years, huh?" Dean makes a noise in the back of his throat because this is a bad idea. A terrible idea. "Sammy, I get this. I do. But just look at those joists. This thing is not exactly stable for highly experimental summoning rituals. If it'll even come."

"It'll come," Sam answers with complete assurance.

"I know I've said it once..." Dean pauses, "okay, probably more than once, but don't you think you've passed the statute of limitations on this one? Pretty sure there's a rule about the boogeyman harassing boys over 6'1."

There's a note of hope sandwiched inside the sarcasm which coats the memories of this evil place. One last chance to dissuade Sam from this unnecessary danger. One final opportunity to get him to turn the car around.

One night, and if Dean could just somehow distract him for one night...

Because things had not ended well the first time for...anyone.

If Sam hadn't taken this so personally. If he had let Dean handle the blame, then maybe they wouldn't have had to come back here and reopen the big leaking wound in his little brother's heart. Wouldn't have to make Dean watch it bleed.

Sam sits back in the passenger's seat slowly and Dean instinctively knows what he's thinking:

_Fourteen years. It's past due._

"It'll come, Dean. Whether the ritual works or not."

There's the creepy psychic certainty again. Those dreams Sam has been having...of Dad...of  _her._

This is the place where it all started for Sam-where it should have ended. Something had broken that couldn't be put back together, so here they were on Sam's crazy crusade.

Dad should have said something more to the kid when he was 10.

" _It's time, Sam."_

_Jesus, Dad. Those three words 14 years ago..._

Dead for ten months and he's still giving orders. Ironic that it's Sam, the kid who was always so bent out of shape by those orders, who insists on being here now and doing this thing alone. Maybe it was because there was no final "I'm proud of you, son," moment with Sam, and Dean, of all people, knew just how hard Sam had tried to love that man and be loved by him. And now Sam is planning on putting his life on the line to what, make a dead father proud?

Who is Sam chasing here? A little girl? The ghost of his father? The ghost of his innocence? They're all long gone. Hell, even this motel from their past looks like a ghost now-faded and broken and a shade of what it was.

"Hey, have I pointed out that the building is probably gonna fall on us? Do you think about stuff like that anymore, because you used to. You know, work some calculus and physics on the relative mass of a ton of two by fours and the human skull and then let's figure out some other way..."  _Like, seven years from now._

Sam looks at Dean, and Dean doesn't like it because Sam is really calm. Not taking the bait. At all.

"Dean, I told you, I'm doing this. I've got this." He gives a small smile as if reassuring a frightened child and now Dean is really nervous. "And yeah, I did the math and it turns out that it'll hold out for one of us. Dibs."

"Dib-Dammit! You clearly cheated."

Sam smiles. "Hard to cheat when you keep changing the rules. Okay then, rock paper scissors?"

_Yeah. Har har, Sammy. You know I suck at that..._

"Let's just consider the logic then, Mr. Stanford. Wouldn't it make sense for Gigantor to stay in the car and the older, less...massful brother take over? I know how much you hate splinters."

Sam makes a tiny, mirthful laugh and Dean thinks maybe, possibly, he can ease Sam out of this one. If he's careful.

"You  _know_ Sam. 'Oh my god, I have a splinter. I need a tetanus shot.'"

"Dude, that was  _one_ time. And I was  _six_!"

"And? You were a little bitch then and you are now." He adds, "And what kind of six-year-old kid knows so much about tetanus anyway?"

There's a hesitation in the comeback. Dean braces for impact, and he's not wrong.

"Dad taught me. He taught us both. Don't you remember that survival weekend in Michigan?"

Jesus, Sammy remembers  _that_?  _Maybe_ he was four.

"Dude, that was just what Dad called it. We were camping because we couldn't find a motel that night." Dean squints his eyes and shakes his head in disbelief. "What the hell, d'you also remember when you were born?"

"No. But sometimes I think...I remember  _it_ in the dreams-how cold it was..."

Sam's eyes trail back to the door of that Osseo Motel room and his expression is haunted.

Well, fuck. New tactic.

"We have until, like, what, 11:30? Should only take a few minutes to set up the ritual, so we've got time and I'm starving and you're hoggin' the grub." Dean holds out his hand for their drive-through cuisine of the night. And yes, that seems to work. Sam apologizes (a little weird, but okay), turns away from the memories no doubt on some black and white silent film in his head, and digs deep into the bag to pull out Dean's Monster Burger or whatever it was. With bacon. And hold the hippy-happy greenery, thank you.

Dean smiles as he unwraps his burger. He has to stare deeply at it for a few seconds, lovingly, milking the smirk he can feel from his complicated little brother.

"You sure you don't want a room so you two can be alone?" Sam nods at the silent motel before them.

Dean grins roguishly at his burger, seducing it. "Don't listen to him, baby. He's jealous. Come here, I'll make it better." He sinks his teeth into the sandwich, taking a big bite, and oh yes, let the grease come into his body and fill it with love.

"Mmmm."

Sammy smiles, ducks his head, scratches the back of his ear almost in embarrassment as Dean continues to make noises better suited to a porn than eating a burger (although the difference in the joy those two things brought was negligible).

He points his chin at Sam as he chews and talks around it. "Come on. Chow time. Get your lettuce on. I know how much you like to chew each bite 23 times and the clock is ticking, Cinderella." Dean swallows his after five. Hey, that moment was over. Time for a new moment.

"I would if your  _Eyes Wide Shut_  sound effects weren't making me lose my appetite." But he reaches in for the plastic salad container like a good little brother anyway.

Dean makes a face. "I seriously doubt your ability to even have an appetite when you have grass to look forward to." It sparks a memory. "See? You aren't at the bottom of the food chain after all." He pushes on Sam's shoulder and gets a reluctant smile for the work.

Thank God it was a smile. That was a gamble.

"You used to like burgers and mac and cheese."

Sam considers the unwrapped lettuce and then rips open a plastic fork. "Yeah. I did. I still do, sometimes."

"Oh yeah? Like when?"

Sam shrugs his shoulders once and says, "Like when you make them for me."

Dean stops chewing. Okaaay. Hard to eat when a guy's heart jumps into his stomach.

"Well, of course when  _I_ make them," he says when he's recovering because the  _way_ Sam said it was too...muchly. "And I made you eat it. I thought they would take-you know, all of my better habits-if I drummed them into you."

"You mean like doing whatever it takes to do the job right? Even if it sucks?"

Dean nods, "Yeah, like..." He stops. That isn't the right tone.

But Deans face feels a little chilly. Tingly. His vision is playing tricks with his food.

"You mean like finishing what you started? Lessons like that?"

Hold on now. Hang on. Starting what? Finishing who? What in the hell did he order?  Dean blinks and it's a long blink.

_Oh, fuck._

"Uh, Sammy..." His voice sounds funny even in his own head, "...either there are...two burgers here...or I was just roofied by my own brother..." He swings his head in a wide wobbly arc to look at Sam, but it's dark in the Impala. Super dark.

"I'm learning the lessons, Dean."

"You little...son of a bitch..." He feels his legs kinda just let go and he slumps a little. It doesn't hurt, no, but,  _goddammit Sam!_

Sam's voice is closer to him as his vision gets darker.

"Dean, you probably won't remember this, and I swear, when I come back, you can punch me. A couple times. Hell, as much as you want. I won't blame you, but you need to know this..."

 _Dammit, Sam. Grab him._  But Dean's arms are leaden.

"You're my brother and I love you. And I know that you want me to blame you so you can get in on this, make it an  _us_ thing, but I can't. I can't blame you.  This is mine, and I have to handle it. It's time, Dean."

Those words again.

" _It's time."_

_Ah fuck, Sammy. I'm not letting you do this alone! Stay alive, do you hear me? Stay alive!_

"I'm coming back, Dean. I can do it now. I'm ready. Just wait for me."

_Darkness._

(to be continued...)


	2. "In the Evening" /  "In the Light"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam encounters a pair of eyes in his closet when he is 9-years-old, but this isn't just something you blurt out to your brother who's 14 and...changing. And kind of a Jerk, actually.
> 
> Later, just after Dean and Sam get back together to hunt for their father, Sam makes a discovery in Dad's journal...or the lack thereof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...just what the ef is going on? Oh, you'll find out...
> 
> This chapter begins a series of flashbacks. One series takes place in April/May 1993 When Sam is nearly 10-years old. The others are what I call "Present Day flashbacks" though really they start at almost the beginning of Season 1 and work their way through most of what would be Season 2. They work together. Don't worry, it's less complicated than it sounds, trust me.
> 
> Just...just do yourself a favor and check your closet before you go to bed tonight because you never know...
> 
> Again, so SO much love and thanks to Agelade, my partner in crime, for being an excellent sounding board, mentor, friend, editor, and inspiration. Without you, this thing never would have gotten started! :'D
> 
> P.S. People of Wisconsin, especially Osseo, I love you. Sorry for anything about your town I don't get right. I can't even remember why I picked your little 2 mile city for this epic adventure, but I did, and you are all pretty close to my heart now. A lot of life-changing events happen there in my own litle SPN world.
> 
> -Caladrius

 

 

 

 

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

**Chapter 2: "In the Evening" / "In the Light"**

**April 29, 1993**

**9-years-old Sam**

**14-year-old Dean**

It could have been a trick of the light.

The room was dark, but some illumination found a way to creep in from a shade not quite pulled or from the space at the top of the cheap fixture over a motel window. Sometimes the glow was from a TV left on, his father and Dean passed out in front of it. Of course, the truth was that he hated when they left the TV on. Sam couldn't sleep with that kind of noise, and if the channel happened to air the National Anthem at 3am and then go to static...well, images of one of Dean's favorite movies,  _The Poltergeist,_  would come and haunt him with thoughts of a little girl being swept into the realm of the dead and damned. ("You know, that could happen, Sammy. So don't talk to the TV.") And Dean, in all of his budding adolescent glory, would snicker and leave the younger boy wondering how truthful he was being.

The TV wasn't on tonight, and the light from the window was predictable. Nevertheless, two hours earlier Sam had heard the click and seen...something...from the tiny coat closet near the bathroom door. The opening was a straight shot of about eight feet from his cot which had been rolled out of said closet two days earlier when they had checked into this random Midwest town.

The cracked door was a sliver of darkness watching him. Again. Though Sam desperately wanted to believe it was just a trick of the light, the cold fear seizing his heart whispered that it was actually the shine on a pair of eyes. It  _had_ to be eyes. It couldn't have been a button, or the mini vacuum cleaner, or anything like that because after the first sleepless night Sam had  _thoroughly_ inspected it when the sun was safely up.

Despite his precautions and against all reason, here they were again, all glossy and just a little reflective.

Sam bit the inside of his cheek to stay awake and watched it all night, and as far as he could tell, it watched him back.

Impossibly, it didn't blink, and it didn't move, and when Dean stumbled out of his bed to hit the head somewhere around 5am, it was still there and showed no signs of disappearing. Sam wanted to say something, do something, maybe, like cough loudly, attract his brother's attention...and then what? Say, "Hey, Dean, I think there's a monster in my closet"?

Hell no.

If Sam was just imagining things, and there was a good chance he was, Dean would never let him hear the end of it. A Winchester should know the difference between imagined creatures and reality, right? Monsters were the  _family business_ , after all. It's why Dad wasn't even here tonight, or last night, and probably wouldn't be around tomorrow. Dean was the only one Sam could even really connect with until recently. It wasn't that Dean was a total prick, but lately his personality had become unpredictable and moody. Insufferably superior. So when Dean stumbled back into bed after a thirty-second solid stream of Coca-Cola runoff, Sam said nothing. What was there to say?

Being a member of this family was  _fantastic_.

* * *

**April 30, 1993**

**The next morning**

Sam was dressed and ready for school by 6:30am because there was nothing else to do when the sun came up except check the closet, again. Of course, while it seemed the most logical time of day to search a closet in which one suspected a monster was dwelling, Sam had to face the fact that it was also the time of day he was least likely to find anything supernatural.

_Dammit._

Of course, It was only at night, in the darkness, in the complete  _stillness_  that he saw the eyes, felt the stare. As soon as sunlight squeezed through the blinds in horizontal stripes, it evaporated as did much of the fear. This whole mystery was infuriating.

His fear of it was infuriating.

Instead of dwelling on his lack of manliness, he turned his attention to the other infuriating creature in the room.

Sam perched on a chair and watched his brother in the twin bed sleep like a hibernating bear cub, complete with intermittent growls. There was a kind of chaotic purity in it: arms sprawled, half under a cover, half not, hair in a crazy nest-some of it plastered to the side of his face, the string of drool at the corner of his mouth.

At 7:15 Sam slid off his seat and approached Dean's bed, shaking his shoulder.

"Get up, Dean. We'll be late."

His brother's response was a wet horse snort. So nice to be able to sleep so...unconcerned.

"Unng..." He buried his face in the pillow and mumbled something.

"What?"

Dean turned his head, "I said, fuck school."

Sam gave him a withering look. Dad didn't like that language (at least not from his sons' mouths), but if this was the extent of the famous "teenage rebellion," then Dean was kind of pathetic.

"Bravo. Dad's not here and you said a bad word." Sam was underwhelmed and tired. He turned around and went to collect his things.

"I'm awake two damn seconds and you're already a little bitch." Dean yawned. "Why don't you give it a try, Sammy. Just say it. Say 'fuck' one time. You know you want to. It'll wipe that bitchlook right off your face."

Sam sighed. He was too tired to play the game this morning. Ignoring his brother completely, he opened the tiny fridge unit and pulled out his brown lunch bag.

Dean sat up, a pillow and half a blanket becoming dislodged from the entire bed in the process.

"Hey."

Dean was staring at the carefully made cot, and then their eyes met. There was a question mark embedded there, and Sam had to tread lightly. His brother sometimes seemed like a hormonal idiot, but there were a few things he still excelled at. One of them was being a Nosy Big Brother.

As if to confirm Sam's fears, Dean peered at him searchingly and said, "What's wrong with you? What time'd you get up?"

Sam said nothing. It was patently impossible for Dean to have figured everything out from that short exchange, and he wanted to keep it that way. He stuffed a giant history textbook into the the rucksack his father once carried in Vietnam. Sam supposed he was the one to inherit it because he actually carried books in it. Otherwise, Dean would have claimed it on principle.

"Hey, I'm talkin' to you."

"Get up, Dean."

"Don't tell me what to do. I'm not going today. We're just gonna watch cartoons until our brains bleed out. I'll tell Dad you weren't feeling good."

Sam took a deep breath and exhaled. "Some of us don't hate school, okay?"

Dean grunted. "Man, I already hate  _that_  school. More than others. What the hell is with those big doors? Like, putting the 8th grade in a whole other wing makes the day drag. Watching the high school girls across the parking lot do gym is a perk-nice, by the way. Have I mentioned that?-but I can't bump into you babies ever."

"And that's a bad thin?-oof"

Dean whipped his pillow at Sam unexpectedly. On any other day he could have caught it or avoided it; he had been training at least for that much. Not this morning. While it slapped harmlessly into his gut, it had enough mass to make him stagger back. Ugh,  _dammit Dean! Is exposing all of my weaknesses your job?_

"See? Look at that. That's what I'm talkin' about." Dean pointed at him. "What if some kid starts giving you trouble? I won't even hear about it until it's too late."

Sam wanted to throw the pillow back at him, but he wasn't up to speed and that would mean risking some jab about his girlish form or something. Instead, he tossed it to the side even though throwing a pillow on the floor made him cringe inwardly.

"Dean, I don't need you to know what happens to me every second of every day," he huffed. "I can take care of myself."

"I'll be the judge of that. You know, Dad said this was gonna be a real short job." Dean looked momentarily disappointed and Sam's heart sank. "Bet he would've taken us if it'd been the weekend. I'm itchin' to hunt something, to get  _out,_ man. This place makes me twitchy." His eyes glittered with the thought of imagined adventures with Dad, no doubt, and then he seemed to remember Sam was in the room. "But he didn't, and we'll probably be gone by Sunday, so let's just sleep."

"Dean..."

"It's not worth it, Sam. The more you talk, the harder it'll be to get back to this dream. Shut yer cake hole and turn on the TV." So saying, Dean flipped himself in one motion to land face down, case closed. Still. Silent.

Sam took another deep breath and stared at the ceiling. To be able to sleep would be amazing right now. He could nap, maybe, if it was light out but  _only_  if it was light out. The problem was that Sam really wanted to go to school today. He wanted the structure. He wanted...he wanted  _out_  too _._ Unfortunately, there were rules.

"Dean, please. You know I can't go without you."

Submission.

The silence continued for a few more seconds and then his brother sat up. Dean ran a hand through his wrinkled hair, purposefully causing it to stand on end cartoonsihly. He turned to his brother and grinned like a moron, squeezing a half smile out of Sam. Morning comedy was still one of Dean's merits.

"School is stupid."

"Look in a mirror. You'll fit right in."

"Ooooooo smartass Sammy. Good one. Spoken like a kid who needs to smell my armpit." He pantomimed some kind of wrestling move with his arms.

"Seriously, Dean." Sam finally gave him the eye. "Can we go?"

Dean flopped back onto the bed with a huff. "Waaaaaaste of my time. Give me one good reason why I should."

"There are high school girls on the bus."

One comedic beat later and Dean jumped out of bed. "Oh man, those girls..." he raced into the bathroom for the paradoxical "washing up" that involved more mess than cleaning. After wiping the back of his mouth on his hands, Dean shimmied into a pair of jeans lying in a puddle at the side of his bed and ran his hand through his hair again.

Was it sad that Sam had already prepared motivation that involved Dean's current greatest weakness? No. It was survival. Somehow Dean knew something was wrong, and he'd make him stay home and accompany him watching Cartoon Express, and then Sam wouldn't be able to turn in the assignment he had worked on for hours yesterday. He had taken pride in it because, hey, his teachers could actually be pleased.

Thankfully, Dean asked no further questions, made no more fuss about what was "wrong," and the ride to school was blissfully uneventful.

* * *

 

Osseo, Wisconsin Elementary School. Fourth grade. The entire population of this town was under 1500 people, so everyone knew everyone in a place like this except Sam Winchester. He kept his head down and a tight hold onto the strap of his father's rucksack which stood out because it wasn't new or trendy. He made up for the difference of it by trying to blend in, stay in the background, not cause any scenes or draw too much attention to himself because kids were kids wherever they went. And school was school. And Sam was good at it, but two nights of no sleep and anxiety was enough to make any 9-year-old a wreck, even if he was a quiet wreck. He was on his way to lunch to sit at a corner of a table no one noticed.

"It's Sam, right?"

Startled, Sam stopped walking. Mrs. Appleton was a round, thirty-somethinging woman with glasses and a mass of wavy hair pulled up behind her head. Remembering his name after only two days was a feat, but not one he'd cheer for. He felt under a microscope, edgy. "Yes, ma'am."

"Sam, I just wanted to compliment you on that essay you wrote about the importance of the judicial system. Honestly, since you only just arrived I told you I would give you an extension, but you got the whole thing done on time with the rest of the class. And it was very well-expressed. What school district did you come from?"

Sam's heart pounded with a confused mixture of pleasure and fear. To be praised...that made his face redden slightly. To be asked the question...his toes went cold.

"Petoskey. Petoskey, Michigan," he replied woodenly. It's true, that's where they had been last (for three weeks), and there was no point in lying. After only a couple days here he already had a suspicion she was one of "those" teachers-one who paid attention to details. Students usually detested them because they had a habit of making phone calls home.

A phone call home would be...disastrous.

"Well," Mrs. Appleton smiled, "I hope you are adjusting to life here all right." She turned her head and leaned down a little, a non subtle gesture that she was hatching a conspiracy or about to ask him something personal. "Did I see correctly that you have a birthday coming up in a couple of days? The big one zero?"

Crap. Was it almost May already?

She waited with a smile while Sam felt the blood slide from his face. That clinched it. Mrs. Appleton wasn't just one of "those" teachers, she was a "good one"-a teacher who wanted to get to know him, who might easily check up on him. Build a rapport with him. Ninety-nine percent of the time those kinds of teachers were the best for quiet, troubled kids, but not for Sam and he knew it. He was already fully aware that he was having...an unusual childhood, one that became increasingly complicated the more questions teachers asked.

"Yeah. May second."

The rest of the conversation was a blur full of one-sided smiles. It was cruel, really, to have teachers like her. Cruel for them. There would only ever be two people in his whole world who could ever really know him...and that was only if they ever wanted to.

Vaguely, Sam wondered how his brother was doing. Would he even live to make it to high school at this rate? Sam had only known what their father was doing "for a living" for a couple of years, but by the time Dean told him, his brother was already counting down the days until he could routinely go out with with their father to hunt and kill monsters and possibly get killed himself. Sam knew he was an interruption to Dean's plan of getting on with his hunting life with his idol; it didn't take a genius to see that.

He was tired and everything felt hopeless.

Mrs. Appleton's hand on his shoulder startled him out of his unpleasant meanderings, but her smile was genuine, even if her interest was worrying. Her praise had been very nice and he focused on that, on the sound of her voice, which had a kind of cheerful quality to it. She thought he was exceptional. She thought he was someone who had "potential," who wasn't just a permanent stumbling block to a reckless career path.

Yeah, well...she was the only one.

* * *

**Flash Forward**

**November 15, 2005**

**22-year-old Sam**

**26-year-old Dean**

Dean was late from the beer run, but getting into a rhythm of living and moving with Sammy and without Dad (at least for the moment) was still a hit or miss thing. As in, Sammy liked rhythms and Dean was much more go-with-the-flow. He had never actually  _timed_ a beer run before, and how was he supposed to know that the place carried back issues of  _Busty Asian Beauties_? It was his American Male Duty to appreciate one or two...or three magazines...before settling on the one worth his hard-earned credit card fraud.

As soon as he opened the door, however, he knew he had been gone too long. Sam was sitting at the motel table, hunched over Dad's journal, flipping pages with a certain unhappy look his brother had come to recognize as  _thinking too damn much about things_.

Dean shut the door and tilted his head. He paused expectantly.

Sam didn't move and he didn't look up.

"Hey."

"Hey." Mumbled.

Dean walked further into the room, set the case of beer on his bed, threw the bag with the magazine onto his pillow _(See you lovely ladies later-Big Brother time now)_  and peeled off his outer coat while watching Sam's back.

"What's going on. Did you find something? You figure out where Dad is going next?" Dean carefully approached and looked over his brother's shoulder.

Sam shook his head.

"No, nothing on that front...but," He flipped pages one at a time, as if hoping something would magically fall out.

"But?"

"But, Dean, I don't get it. There's...something missing from Dad's journal. Are you sure this is everything? Maybe there's another one?" Sam was troubled.

"Missing?" Dean looked down at the worn, leather-bound book and half shook his head. "This is what he left. The rest was just, you know, what's in the Impala."

Sam stopped his relentless page-turning and pursed his lips, his eyes on some distant fixed point.

"Maybe he hid something in there I didn't see." Sam stood up ( _jeez, getting tall there, Sammy?_  A couple weeks into their reunion and Dean was still getting used to it.)

"Keys?" his "little" brother held up his hand as if he was somehow owed it. Yeah, right. Dean was quickly getting irritated with the mystery.

"Okay wait, rewind for me here. What d'you think is missing?"

Sam tilted his head and gave him an annoyingly baffled look as if his older brother should have already guessed it.

"Come on, Sam, I don't read minds. Just spill it." Dean couldn't help the spike in his tone.

Sam took a breath and put his hands on his hips the way he did when he was "settling in." He glanced at the door and pressed his lips together before answering.

"Osseo, Wisconsin."

Dean blinked.

 _Oh. Oh shit. Shit_.

_That._

Dean backed off and soberly nodded, irritation giving way to the flash of a bad memory. Of course the first long alone time Sam would have with Dad's journal  _that_ would be what he looked for. Should have come right back from the beer run. Damn those beautiful Asian women and their busts.

"Yeah. It's not in there," he said quietly.

Sam swallowed and sighed. He looked oddly relieved that he hadn't been alone in this search.

"So, you looked too?"

"Yeah, dude. And there's nothing in the Impala I don't know about. Trust me on that."

_Dammit, Sammy. Don't go there. Don't go back there._

Sam threw his arms into the air in exasperation. "Everything else. Literally. Like a Wikipedia run-down of every case, every monster Dad fought is in there but that one. Why? I mean, didn't he  _care?_ "

"I don't know, why don't you ask him when we catch up to him?" Dean grimaced. Yeah, that would go  _so_  well. Great idea, Big Brother.

Sam laughed, and it was depressed and so very drenched with hopelessness.

"Thanks, but no thanks. I just wanted to..." Sam shut down, and whatever he was going to say was related in an offhand gesture towards the journal.

"Hey, if it's not there, it's not there. Let's have a brew and watch something plotless on the tube." Dean said it over his shoulder as he crossed to his bed and ripped open the top of the cardboard case with much more force than was really necessary.

"Even if it's not in the journal, the  _thing,_  is still out there, Dean. Still..." he had a hard time saying it, "... _feeding_."

Dean looked up. Sam was facing away from him, his hand at the level of his eyes and the big brother remembered. He remembered Osseo, Wisconsin. He remembered Sam so broken that he didn't-couldn't- speak to  _anyone_  for two weeks when he turned ten.

Fuck. They couldn't go back to that, not now, not after they had just gotten back together. It had been two whole years since they had even talked before Dad took off without a word. The fact was that Dean had  _missed_  this kid, and he wasn't going to just let him just disappear again without a fight.

"Hey, hey." Dean pulled Sam's shoulder. He cracked a beer and put it into his brother's hand. He took that long, lanky arm and  _made_  him sit down on the couch. "There's time to figure it out, Sammy. But not tonight." Dean sat down next to him, knee to knee, and grabbed the remote. He hazarded a glance at Sam's lost face, and even at 22, hardened by their lives,  _changed_ , all Dean saw was little Sammy-innocent, injured, confused. Nothing he could do about that.

_Goddamn it, Dad!_

_(to be continued...)_


	3. "I Disappear"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean have conversations with girls with varying degrees of success. As Sam's sleep deprivation increases so does Dean's worry, and it begins to become clear that something is wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always and forever, thanks to Agelade who takes the time to read over my crap while simultaneously writing a darn fine season 9 for SPN! :D

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

**Chapter 3: "I Disappear"**

**14 years ago**

**Sam 9-years-old**

**Dean 14-years-old**

The cafeteria was bustling with lunch lines, lunch ladies, and the clack of formed plastic trays. Boys and girls who bought their food were directed and constantly watched by zealous teacher monitors who made sure hands were kept to themselves and conversation was at an acceptable volume.

Sam, with his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, slipped in under the radar. Eyes to the floor but attention on the periphery, he made his way to the corner table as he had yesterday and sat heavily. Two nights of no sleep was taking a toll and he knew it. As long as the sun was up, the irrational fear appeared to be gone, and that's when it was hardest to resist the siren call of unconsciousness.

But school was no place to sleep; it wasn't safe here either, surrounded by strangers. Osseo Elementary was generally calm. Nice. The worst altercation he had seen so far involved a shove in a lunch line which resulted in a principal visit for the guilty party. Still, being nomadic had instilled a kind of paranoia of other people. Even mini ones.

So, it was with the greatest embarrassment that several undefinable seconds later Sam was suddenly half woken from midbite in his sandwich (Dean's handiwork) by the gentle sound of a tray connecting with the table surface. Yes, midbite. A little piece of jelly dropped to his plastic baggy and he looked up quickly to see if anyone had noticed, to make sure he still had all of his stuff. And then he reddened to the tips of his ears as he made eye contact with a girl. With grape jelly all over his chin.

Oh, so smooth. So smooth. Thank God Dean was in an entirely different wing of the building.

She was very pale-that was the first thing Sam noticed-with sandy blond hair gathered at the back and straight cut bangs that were too long and had to be pushed to the side. It left one of her blue eyes in perpetual shadow. The other looked sunken. Her clothes were plain, worn, and when she looked up at Sam from her square of cheese pizza her expression was apologetic, as if she was sorry he had to see her.

Sam's chest squeezed. With little effort she could be collapsed to the size of a milk carton, and while his policy was to keep to himself, it was rare he met someone who so obviously looked like her life was shittier than his own.

"Um. Hi." He tried, as he hastily wiped his chin with a napkin. He spoke softly. She seemed about to shatter from her own weight.

She was still.

"I'm Sam."

Silence.

Sam searched his memory. He hadn't seen this girl at this table yesterday, so maybe they had something in common.

"Um, are you new here too?"

At this, the girl shook her head. "This is my normal seat. I've been...sick for a few days."

"Oh." Sam's eyebrows drew together. It was true-she didn't look well. "I'm sorry." There was a second of silence and then he prompted. "Are you...feeling better?"

She hesitated and then shrugged half-heartedly.

"It doesn't matter. Mommy said I had to go to school so she could work."

Sam felt a lump in his throat and couldn't swallow it down. This was bad because...because he hurt for her. She took a shuddering breath and then looked at him from under her lashes and said, "My name is Amber."

Sam sat up. He was wide awake. She was connecting with him and...and she shouldn't because he wasn't going to be here for very long. He couldn't be a friend. And yet, he felt a tug. A pang.

"Are you in 4th grade too?"  _Shut up, Sam. Eat your lunch._

She shook her head again. "Third grade." She pushed her tray shyly towards him. "Do you want my pizza?"

Sam blinked at the offering and then pursed his lips before putting on his kindest smile and lifting his half eaten sandwich. "Nah, I'm good. PBJ. My brother made it. He'd be pissed if I ate cafeteria food over his gourmet."  _Stop joking. Stop._  Sam slid the tray back to her and willed her with all of his might.  _Eat this._

Amber's lips gave Sam a Mona Lisa smile. Her tiny fingers reached towards the slice of pizza and she picked it up to nibble a mouse-sized bite from a corner. It made him feel better somehow.

He cleared his throat. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?" Sam just...couldn't...stop. And that was weird. But he was tired, and she was sad and lonely and sick and no one listened to  _her_  either.

Amber paused and then shook her head. "Just my mom. My Dad left on a hunting trip when I was a baby."

 _A hunting trip._  Sam swallowed.

"That's a...long hunting trip."  _Not so smooth, idiot._  But Sam's defense was that he was blindsided by the similarity on even that point. Figuratively.

"He's not dead but he's not coming back. I know that much." Her whole body shuddered with the confession: "I'm a lot of trouble..."

"Hey," Sam said with sudden intensity, "It's not your fault."

Her eyes filled immediately and Sam was left floundering. Did he...did he just make a little girl cry? He had to get himself together. His emotions were raw. Everything about her was just...hitting all the wrong notes. Or the right notes. No, wrong. But still, to make her cry? He took a deep breath and soothed it out.

"I don't believe it's you. I just don't believe it. Adults do stuff...and they hide things and maybe they don't realize things. I mean. I mean, my Dad's around, sometimes, and he tells me almost nothing when he  _is_  there."  _Dean would murder me right now. What am I saying? Shut up, Sam!_  "So...don't just think it's you. Okay?"

Amber pursed her lips. She nodded and then picked up a napkin to push at her face. When she pulled it away, she looked somehow sicker, paler, and Sam's stomach fell.

"Sam, I'm really tired..." Her voice was so small.

He put down his sandwich.

"How about you go see the nurse? Even if your mom isn't home to pick you up from school, you could lay down for awhile, right?"

She swallowed and nodded, and then Sam did something he had never done before. He climbed out of his seat and abandoned his things for five minutes to call a table monitor over.

Amber was on his mind for the rest of the day. It was impossible, after that, for her not to be. Sam poked himself in the arm with his pencil during math class to keep alert, to stay awake, to refocus. Somehow her problems felt worse than his own, as impossible as it was. But he had to let her go or it would be harder later.

 _For her_ , he reminded himself.

* * *

At 3:12 when Sam stepped onto the bus Dean was already in the aisle, pointing to the inside of the bench seat. Sam kept his head down here too because this town was so small that the elementary kids rode with junior high and high school kids. The high school boys, especially, could be the biggest dickwads to anyone they wanted to push around. Not that Sam had anything to worry about on that front; any kid who tried to pick on the quiet little brother had to go through Dean, and Dean was not just all talk when it came to bus altercations. Still, Sam disliked meaningless confrontation and so he did what he always did on the bus: he shut the sounds out of his ears, watched his feet, and slid into the green bench, rucksack on his knees. Only when Dean had plopped down next to him, feet in the aisle like Hadrian's Wall, did his eyes find their way from his feet to the window at his side. Only then did he breathe.

"How was school?" Dean asked.

Sam blinked.  _How was school?_ Dean never asked him questions like that. His brother's eyes were fixed on him and he felt a probing stare. Sam inspected the dimpled green vinyl of the seat in front of him and ignored the bone-weariness. An image of Amber's pale face floated in his memory.

"Fine. How was school for you?"

"Um." Sam felt Dean's attention shift and he hazarded a glance up. Dean was staring off at the front of the bus, his eyes already glazing. "Oh, sweet Jesus, there she is." He sat straight up as the object of his attention made her way, laughing, towards them.

 _So, yeah. Good talk_ , Sam thought. But it was fine because his plan had been to distract Dean anyway from too many questions. There was no way in hell Dean was going to pull out of him that he had had an honest-to-God conversation with a  _girl._  Or that he hadn't slept in two nights for that matter. The way his brother had been acting lately, it was bound to become a problem. His brother began an ambitious round of flirting with what looked like an 11th grade blond cheerleader-type, while simultaneously watching behind them and in front of them for...what? Danger? Of course danger. Children were dangerous even when nothing supernatural was involved, and he and his brother were complete outsiders here in a town where everyone knew everyone.

Sam concentrated on the sound of his brother's voice to help him stay awake-not that it was entertaining or impressive in any way. Dean's lines sounded like something from a TV show: "Hey, sweetheart. I saw you at P.E. Are those shorts legal in Wisconsin?"

At some point when they were littler, Dean's obsession had been chiefly with cars. That was easy to understand because cars were fast, cool, and fixable. When, exactly, did girls start to climb the ladder of importance? It just proved that Dean was...changing. In ways. Some of those ways were making Dean harder to live with. Some of the changes worried Sam, though he wouldn't admit it. What if Dean changed into an adult like their father? Overnight? Dean already idolized the man, patterned himself after him, liked the same things their father liked with almost comedic perfection. It might have been comedic except that their father was hardly Father Of The Year. For one thing, he was never  _there._

What if Dean became like that? What if he became the stranger their father was? Sam shuddered. He had the irrational desire to hold onto Dean's shirttail like he used to when he was younger. The connection had solidified his physical proximity to the only other person in this world he knew, and, as a child, it was a lifeline-a source of comfort.

But Sam was trying to grow out of that habit.

Sam leaned forward, put his forehead onto the seat in front of him, and for maybe 20 minutes he slept like that. It was a surreal kind of jostled sleep covered in swear words and the smell of gum, and the sounds of happy and guileless children all talking, laughing, breathing...

Breathing...

_Sam._

_Strange..._

Breathing.

_Sam..._

_Who are you? Do I know you?_

_Sam, I'm leaving with Dad for a few weeks. Mac and Cheese is in the cupboard. I put a gun under your pillow. Keep the door locked until we get back. This place has cable, so knock yourself out. Just make sure you get some sleep. Dean smiles and pats him on the shoulder. You're big enough now._

_No, Dean._

_Come on, Sam, you knew this day was coming. Dean loads a bag with guns. Big guns. Small guns. Me and Dad have a job to do._

_Don't Dean. Please don't...at least, take me with you._

_Ready to kill something, Sammy?_

_Silence..._

_I don't want to kill anything._

_Gotta stay home, Sammy. You aren't ready. You'll know when it's time._

_Sammy, don't cry. You aren't a baby. Be a man. Sam. Sammy._

_Dean, I'm cold._

"Sammy, wake up."

Sam jolted awake, an icy shiver down his spine, and in his mind's eye he saw a mirror-like shine in a place it shouldn't have been, and for a second his name had sounded strange in his ears. Instinctively he grabbed Dean's shirt, frantic for some reason he couldn't remember.

"Sam?"

Sam blinked. He was on the bus. Right. He dropped Dean's shirt as if it was made of molten lava and he let a suspicious Dean pull him out of the seat onto the drop off curb near the gas station, and he was quiet. But he was thinking of the closet at the motel.

Where  _it_  was...

If it was nothing, then it was nothing. If it was nothing, then he was just jittery lately. Dad had recently come back from a trip that was, like, a week long. It was normal to feel jumpy. Other children had routine fears about dark rooms- his was nothing new. But maybe, just  _maybe_ , what they  _thought_  was just routine was...something else. And maybe that "something else" was in the closet in the motel room, watching him. Waiting.

Suddenly a weight was lifted from his shoulder. Sam felt the rucksack drag down his arm for a split second and then was gone. He berated himself for having to blink twice to stop and get his bearings.

"Hey Sammy, this thing's gonna put you in the dirt." Dean hefted the bag onto his own shoulder and scanned the road before looking down at him again. "What's wrong with you? You're like a space case. Not sniffing whiteout or eating paste in that class, are you?"

And Dean was in douche mode apparently. Again. Sam's tired face reddened as he remembered grabbing Dean's shirt on the bus. Embarrassed and confused and irritated, Sam's expression fell into something hard as he grabbed  _his_  bag off of Dean's shoulder and took the weight,  _his_ weight, back. "I can carry my own stuff."

"Whoa. Alright already," Dean put up his hands. Sam saw the look of worry in his brother's eyes as he quickly turned around. A little bit of the Old Dean. Or...the younger Dean whom he  _used_ to ask to check his closets for him. And under the bed. But Sam didn't want to be the nervous little brother anymore. He had to grow up. He  _had_  to or he would be left behind. If his father was man enough chop off vampire heads without batting an eyelash and Dean was totally ready to do the same, then he could deal with his...his boogeyman issues on his own. Yes, he could.

And despite those strong words to himself, despite Dean's veiled and sometimes extremely direct commands to explain why Sam's glazed eyes were half-focused on his plate of macaroni and cheese like he could see the future in it, that night in bed there he was, staring at shiny eyes from his closet.

They were eyes. They had to be eyes, right?

Was it waiting for something?

That was it. He was going to get up and just walk over there-open that damn door, find the stupid shiny eye-like thing and get it  _over_  with. Once he knew it was...whatever it was...he could sleep.  _Sleep_. And then he wouldn't have to be subject to his brother's comments, he would keep his eyes open in school and continue to be worthy of Mrs. Appleton's notice...of Amber's tiny smile.

But he could not. He could  _not_. He could not get out of bed. Something inside, something in his brain that trumped every fraction of logic he had managed to develop in his almost ten years of life, told him to  _stay away_. It practically screamed it. It also told him that if he looked away or fell asleep, those eyes would emerge connected to some nightmare, and it would be on him so fast there wouldn't be time to shout. To cry out. To do anything but die. And that same something that told him not to look away, to stay put, told him that he was the only target in this room. Just him. Sam Winchester.

Ironically, it seemed that the only one who had any real use for him was a monster.

* * *

**January 25, 2006**

**Flash forward**

**Dean 27-years-old**

**Sam 22-years-old**

Libraries made Dean itch. It wasn't that he hated words, it's just that there were so many in a library, all jumbled together, most of them completely pointless. Like any deep wilderness, one needed a guide to make it through, to survive it, to sift out the useless from the useful.

Luckily he had a smart little brother to work this part of their current case.

From across the open room, Dean observed Sam at a far table completely engrossed in a very old book. He was checking the words with his finger, making small, precise notes in a notebook. It was very Dadlike. Did Sammy even realize how much he looked like him when he was knee-deep in research? Would he be flattered by it? Probably not. But Dean might have been a little jealous.

He purposefully stealthed up behind his brother to survey the researcher's "nest" Sam had made- all very carefully arranged-pencils, pens, books neatly stacked and...something he hadn't seen in a long time.

He smiled and picked it up. "Hey, you still have this? Holy crap."

Sam jumped slightly, and Dean forgave him for not watching his back as he turned to see what his brother was talking about.

"Yeah, of course I do. Why wouldn't I?"

Dean shrugged lamely. "I don't know. I guess I just thought...it's kinda old. And..." his smile fell. Once upon a time he had been so excited to give this to Sammy. For his 10th birthday.

God, that birthday. Was everything going to remind him of it now?

"Dean, this was best present you ever gave me when we were kids...or ever," Sam academically explained as he took it from his hand carefully, reverently.

"Yeah, I didn't have it in me to top it," he laughed shortly but there was no joy in it.

Sam stared up at him quizzically and squinted his eyes. "Hey, what's with you?" He points, "you still wear that...stupid pendant I gave you for Christmas."

 _Damn you, Sam. No fair going for the heart._  "I like this pendant, okay? It's...lucky." He cleared his throat and pointed at the gift as Sam started to clean up his nest. "I just thought, you know...with it being  _that_ day when I gave it..."

Sam flashed a brief smile that quickly escaped back to neutral. He nodded. "It's important to me, okay? Happy?"

Yeah. Yeah, actually, Dean was...and felt tremendously guilty for it.

Sam faced the books and began closing them. "And you can one-up it any year you stop giving me beef jerky or beer or porn for my birthday."

"What? Hell no, you need those things. That's like, road survival gear."

"Yeah, like the three quarts of motor oil, dashboard cleaner, and Turtle wax you asked for your birthday yesterday?"

Dean shrugged, "Gotta keep the baby happy, Sammy, or she won't take us anywhere. And you owe me a 'wax off' after we get this job done, Daniel-san."

Sam raised his eyebrows at that. "Right. Sure thing, Mr. Miyagi."

"Shhh!"

An imposing old woman with blue hair gave him the stink eye. Dean did the only mature thing given the situation: he stuck out his tongue.

"I've got what we need," Sam whispered obediently. He finished putting everything into the faded green rucksack and stood up.

Dean swallowed. His mind was still on the image of his little brother's face and that present. The surprise...and then the door opening...

Sam put a steadying hand on his shoulder as if the older brother was the one who needed comfort. And in a way, he was. That gift would only ever be a reminder of a time Sam should have just...let go. It shouldn't have been something he carried around for the next twelve and a half years of his life. None of it was.

Dean realized he had gotten stalled in the memory himself when Sam finally said, "I'm not thinking about it. Let's go find Dad or save someone."

Yeah. Sammy was becoming a good liar too.

_(to be continued...)_


	4. "Dazed and Confused"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam writes three important letters and begins to succumb to sleep deprivation. Is school really the sanctuary he hoped it would be?
> 
> Flash forward: John Winchester is dead and Dean is not handling it well. Neither is Sam, but digging up the boogeyman seems like the last thing his brother should be doing...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Agelade and for all reviews!

 

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

**Chapter 4: "Dazed and Confused"**

**May 1, 1993**

**Sam: 9-years-old**

**Dean: 14-years-old**

Three nights, no sleep.

That morning, Sam had no patience for Dean's "fuck school" routine. His whining tone progressed to curious and then to demanding as Sam ignored him, zombie-like, while gathering his things. The clamor of a body exiting a bed registered somewhere in the back of Sam's mind as he walked woodenly and mechanically to the door to leave his older brother behind, rules be damned. Dean hadn't expected that at all.

"Hey. Hey! Sammy! Where d'you think you're going?"

"To school," Sam replied, banging out the door. School was a safe place right now. School was structure and sunlight and smiling teachers and kids who had normal problems like fighting over pencil cases and toys. School was a place away from that empty bed that he would never even  _think_  of claiming in that motel room because "it's Dad's bed" even though the man was never actually there to sleep in it. Like, ever.

School was far away from a dark closet where something watched and waited for him.

Dean caught up to Sam a block away, his Converse All-Stars slapping the pavement. It was accompanied by a rushed huffing that was 80 percent flabbergasted and 20 percent still asleep.

"Sam. Seriously, dude, what the hell is wrong?"

Sam ignored the real worry in Dean's tone. He carefully did not make eye contact; the bags under his eyes weighed a hundred pounds and there was nothing he could say that didn't sound grouchy or bitchy and simply increase Dean's curiosity when what he wanted was to just have space to figure this all out on his own. His whole soul was tired and one big, raw nerve that Dean knew how perfectly irritate on Sam's best day. Today was a million years away from a day like a "best" anything unless it was the "best" he could do with a furtive ten-minute nap here and there and three nights with no sleep. Just how long could a person go without sleep before they just keeled over and died, anyway? What was the record for that? He'd have to look it up when he got to school...

Thoughts like that and monosyllabic answers and grunts to his brother's questions fended Dean off to the bus. It managed to get him to school, too. Sam had no plan for afterwards, however. He had to live through today. And then tonight...and then somehow every day and night after this and, dear Mom, I am so  _tired_...

During math, Sam was forced to ask to sharpen his pencil several times. This was partially because he was quietly poking himself in the inner arm to keep from slumping over his word problems. The frequent trips to the pencil sharpener were uncomfortable (why did every kid in the classroom have to look at a kid sharpening a pencil? For that matter, why was the pencil sharpener always in the  _front_  of the room?), but they also kept him awake. Barely.

Social Studies was little better. In her infinite wisdom, Mrs. Appleton combined a lesson on letter writing and history. Their assignment for 25 minutes was to write a letter to an important figure of the Civil War and demonstrate an understanding of three distinct contributions that figure made during the war or Reconstruction afterwards.

Sam stared at his paper. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them very wide, hoping the blue-lined paper would come back into focus. The Civil War and a bunch of  _actually_  dead people seemed so far from his current troubles. So far away, in fact, it almost physically hurt. Or maybe that was just his head being tired. After a couple of minutes of what felt like a doze, Sam took a deep breath to get himself together and happened to glance up.

Mrs. Appleton was looking right at him, and the look was a "good one" teacher expression of deep concern. Maybe an "I might have to call home" look of concern.

_Oh shit. Write a letter, Sammy._

How long had he been out of it? With sweating palms, Sam let his eyesight focus on his right periphery, at the paper of a kid named Parker Thompson. Parker's letter started out:

" _Dear General Lee,_

_So I gess you lost the Civil War. That was a prety importnt thing you did. I hate to loose to. I hate it wehn my brother Kevin kicks me when we play Super Mario Kart and makes me loose."_

Jesus Christ.

But Sam's exasperation and momentary sense of superiority faded away. Brothers were  _supposed_ to fight over video games, after all. They were supposed to have a few things in common, compete over the same kinds of things. Right? But lately, in his own little world, the distance between him and Dean was growing. And it wasn't just the weird changes, either. Ever since Dad started to let Dean go with him on some hunts, his brother's eyes had changed. And then the two of them would talk about it in half phrases, truncated purposefully to keep Sam in the dark about details. Sam hated that most of all. Not from their father-he'd been keeping things from both of them for years-but Dean's hesitation to share the secrets with him put Sam always on the outside. Why couldn't they be like they were? Once upon a time, Dean was the greatest kid in the whole world, his personality notwithstanding. Maybe he still would be if his level of concern rose above Dad's edict to "take care of Sammy" like cleaning up after a pampered poodle. Like he was a chore.

Sam took a deep breath and began:

" _Dear President Lincoln,_

_How did you find the determination and the willpower and strength to take two broken halves of the country and unite them as one? How did you get the idea that these two disparate masses of people, with different cultures and beliefs, could ever possibly see eye to eye enough to join under one flag again?"_

Sam paused. He stared at his paper for a moment, and the words spilled out.

His letter was done in ten minutes. It was full of facts and Sam's spontaneous appreciation of them-of Lincoln and his work. It was suddenly easy to imagine how stressed out Lincoln must have been trying to reconcile families who had to fight each other for what they believed in, to survive. Empathy for that astronomical task had translated into respect and two pages of heartfelt correspondence. He hoped it was okay.

He could write another letter, maybe. He had plenty of paper here, and in a few more minutes, a freshly sharpened pencil. But who would he write to? Dean? Right. That would go over well.  _"Why'd you write me a letter when you live with me? Idiot."_ So, no thank you _._

Dad? Sam thought about it. His heart jumped at the idea of it...but then, he'd never know what the reaction would be to it. At all. If he wrote his father a letter, he'd read it while he was away. And then when he came back he'd probably never say anything about it, no matter what Sam wrote, even if it was important. And then it would eat at him and eat at him because he'd have to wonder what he thought about it. So, no. Not him either.

Maybe Bobby Singer? He seemed like a decent guy. And he had an actual address to which Sam could mail it. Sometimes when Dad was gone for a  _really_  long time, Dean and Sam would stay with Bobby. His house was  _huge_. It was filled with all kinds of weird things, giant books, and he had dogs that remembered Sam and Dean every time and who liked to play. Bobby himself was a tough guy, and a bit rough around the edges, but Sam and Dean had never felt unwelcome there. That was rare. But what could Sam talk about in a letter? Maybe history? It seemed like Bobby knew a lot of really random facts about antiquity and the past.

Sam picked up his pencil.

" _Dear Bobby,_

_Hi. It's Sam Winchester. I'm supposed to write a letter in this social studies class about someone important during the Civil War, so I picked Abraham Lincoln. Maybe he was an obvious choice. Do you know anything really cool about the Civil War? Are there any legends that they don't put in text books? You seem like the guy who would know those sorts of things. I hope business is going well. I'm fine and so is Dean. He's excited about high school girls. I got an A on a paper yesterday. Dad's been gone for awhile. I guess he is okay too. I know you won't be able to write back to this, since I don't know if we will even still be here when you get this letter. That's okay because I hope we visit soon. I miss South Dakota, though Wisconsin is kind of pretty. Maybe we can come stay with you this summer? We'd like that._

_Sincerely,_

_Sam Winchester"_

Sam reread his letter and smiled at it. Bobby would probably be surprised to get a letter from him. It might be a nice surprise-he hoped it would be. Getting the stamp might be a challenge, but he knew Bobby's address by heart. He'd get it there somehow.

Sam put down his pencil and sat back. The other students were still writing and the room was deathly silent except for the ticking of the round black and white clock next to the American flag and the sound of his blood rushing in his ears...

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick...

_Sam...Sam..._

_Disgusted look. Packing a bag and turning away. I don't even know you anymore._

_Dean, don't..._

_Standing at the door. Dark eyes. You aren't one of us, Sam._

_Dad? Fear. Terror. Those words, finally said._

_Where are you guys going? Hang on, Dean. Wait. I can...I can. I can do it too, Dad!_

_Dean can handle it. You were a mistake, Sam. You're different._

_No._

_Please._

_Dad. Don't take Dean...Don't go. Please. Please! It's dangerous. I hate the hunting. I hate it! You could die. You and Dean could_ die! _We could all die, just like Mom..._

_Please. Let's just go away. Let's just be normal. Let's ignore the monsters and then nothing will happen. Nothing is going to happen._

_It's not that simple, son. If you don't choose us, then you are one of_ them _. You're a monster too, Sam. A monster._

_An icy hand. Forehead. Who is that? Who are you? What do you want from me!_

_A chilly smile. Cold face. Shiny eyes._

_So much fear..._

The sound of Parker hitting the paper with his pencil jolted Sam awake. He looked over, startled, but the boy was simply writing the word "Becase." That was it. And then Sam noticed he was slouching in his seat and his eyes were wet. Had someone been talking? His heart hurt in his chest and a chill seized him. He swallowed hard and sat up. This was bad. If he did nothing for-he checked-eight more minutes he'd be asleep. Really asleep.

Seriously? Still eight more minutes to go? Sam cast his eyes around the room, and only a few of his classmates were actually finishing up. Technically, he had time for one more letter and, honestly, Sam was kind of warming to this whole letter-writing thing. It felt nice to be communicating with humanity, even if it was delayed communication through pencil and paper. But who else would he want to talk to? Who else could inspire him to reach out like this?

And then, it hit him.

Amber.

Sam sat up and stared at the blue paper. The idea of writing to her made his face burn. It...woke him up. His palms started to sweat in earnest and his fingers slid across the glossy yellow paint of his pencil as he started to mentally compose a letter to that little girl who was fighting an adult world by herself and with a sick body. Yeah, he could write to Amber. Sam pursed his lips. She was only in third grade, so he had to be careful what words he picked but...but they had something in common. They had more than one thing in common.

Suddenly Sam didn't feel the need to sharpen his pencil.

" _Dear Amber,_

_How are you today? I hope you feel better. I just wanted to say it was nice to meet you. I also wanted to say I'm sorry. I yelled yesterday, but I wasn't mad at you. I hope you know that. I was mad at the people who left you alone. I was mad at the people who didn't say 'I'm sorry' to you. I am mad at the people who made you think you did something wrong. I'm mad at the people who make you say 'I'm a lot of trouble.' But I think your mom probably loves you a lot. I think you are a very strong person. I think you are doing a good job. And I think things will work out if you keep trying. I hope we can be friends._

_Sincerely,_

_Sam Winchester"_

Sam read his letter. He felt giddy, dizzy. He knew he had a crazy grin on his face, but he couldn't wipe it off until he reread it for the third time. And then he frowned. Boy, he certainly sounded like an angry kid. Hastily he scribbled in a postscript:

" _P.S. I get mad a lot, it's true, but I don't mean to make other people sad."_

Sam poked his chin with his eraser. Was this something she could read? The words seemed right for a third grader. His sentences weren't too long.

" _I hope we can be friends."_

Sam swallowed hard.  _You shouldn't write that, Sam. You can't be her friend. You can't be_ anyone's _friend._ But despite the tone of his stern inner voice, constructed from the sentiments of his father and brother over the years, he couldn't bring himself to erase it.

Sam folded Amber's letter neatly and wrote her name, small, on the front. When he had tucked the letter into his rucksack, he stood up and walked to Mrs. Appleton's desk to turn in his assignment. He tried hard not to meet her eyes.

"Sam? Are you getting enough sleep at night? You're not watching TV until too late, are you?" Her voice was riddled with concern, and the irony of her suggestion would have caused Sam to laugh and laugh for a half hour like a moron had he not suspected that her next step would be to find his father's contact number in that rolodex she had somewhere and call him up to voice her worries...

Sam's cheeks went from red to white in the space of a second and the loss of blood pressure made him feel faint.

"Oh, my brother has a spring cold right now. He's been keeping me up for hours at night. But I think he's getting better." Did that sound okay? He was so tired. He may have said it a little too loudly.

"Oh dear. Older or younger?"

_Oh crap, please don't talk to Dean._

"Older."

She smiled and Sam felt his heart reach up into his throat and throttle him.

"Brothers can be a pain, can't they?"

Sam tried at a smile that said "yeah, you know it" and not "HAHAHAH WOW I WAS JUST THINKING THAT!" Because being level was extremely difficult right now.

He must have succeeded because she didn't press the issue. "Well, I hope your brother is over it by tonight so you can get some rest."

Sam nodded, agreed in some fashion, and casually turned around to return to his seat. Crisis had been averted for one more day, but this excuse wouldn't hold tomorrow. If he made it to tomorrow.

Walking to the cafeteria in line Sam experienced tunnel vision for the first time. Luckily he only bumped into the wall, not anyone else. He was careful not to do that. Thankfully, either none of the teachers saw him, or they chalked the blunder up to a child's clumsiness and didn't begin any messy inquiries. It was ironic, really, because Dad actually put him and Dean through balance  _training_  for God's sake.

When the lunch line started to queue, Sam maneuvered his way around the sea of bodies once again. He thought of the letter in his rucksack, carefully tri-folded, with a girl's name on it, and he lost almost all sensation in his feet. Was it the sleep deprivation that was making him feel so...goofy? Or was it the presence of that letter, the thought of handing it over? Whatever it was, Sam was certain that his brain and entire body was on a collision course with some kind of wall.

The rucksack smacked onto the empty chair next to him and he sat down to await  _her._

* * *

**July 25, 2006**

**Flash Forward**

**Sam 23-years-old**

**Dean 27-years old**

_Dad is dead..._

Dean wiped his sweating face on the rag and approached the back door. He had completed his inspection of the Impala, the wreck of the Impala. The destroyed, twisted, mangled remains of what used to be something so solid, so dependable, so...always there.

Fuck.  _Do not think about Dad._

And then his brain jumped right into what he would need to fix his baby-what he could use that was still left. The frame was a nightmare, and the engine and drive shaft were shot. There were a few spark plugs that had survived, maybe a fan belt.

_Goddammit, Dad. What happened to you?_

Half of the electrical system was too mangled and fused to consider, but wires were wires and they were cheap. Bobby had a lot of stuff around here, and when the boys arrived a day earlier he had put his hand on Dean's shoulder and said, "Anything you need, son."

_I'm not your son._

But all his baby would need would be TLC and time and a fresh coat of paint. She'd hum again and then...

" _I can't believe this, but he's going to make a full recovery." Not possible, Doc. Never._

Too much thinking. Stop thinking. Car. Think car. Think car.

Dean pushed through the back door. He was about to call for Bobby (he needed a new torque wrench since he had somehow out-torqued it trying torque Death in his mind) when he heard Sam's voice and two words. Two fucking words.

"...Osseo, Wisconsin?"

Dean stopped at the threshold of the library where Bobby kept a lot of books and a table and chairs. He stepped to the side and listened, his body sheltered from sight.

"Osseo, Wisconsin..." Bobby's voice was thinking.

"This would have been around...April and May 1993? Did he...did he ever happen to mention anything about what he was fighting?"

_Dammit, Sammy. Really? You really want to do this now? Haven't seen Bobby in years. Haven't been here for two days yet...don't we have enough to..._

"Yeah. I seem to remember a bit, maybe. From Osseo." Pause. "Didn't you...write me a letter or something?" He made a small laugh. "Some...history assignment?"

Sam breathed out and Dean could hear a smile in there.

"Wow, Bobby, that's...that's some memory. Yeah, yeah I did. It was on..."

"Abraham Lincoln, right?"

"That's it. That's the time and place." Sam was warming and Dean was cooling. A chill seized his spine.

"Yeah. He was tracking a boogeyman. Said he had it nailed down to the day and was tightening the net as fast as he could."

Silence.

Dean's heart pounded-pounded so damn hard that he could barely hear Sam's intake of breath. And then the silence got strange...

"Bobby, what did he say? What..." Dean could imagine Sam's face, his chin trembling. The words were all Sammy emotion. And then the pacing started. "What...did he say...happened?"

"Sam? You okay, son? Why don't you sit down..."

"Bobby, please!" Quieter. "Please...just. What did he say about it?"

A pause. Dean felt they were all perched on the edge of a cliff. Down there...down there they'd all break...but even Dean couldn't bring himself to stop it.

"Nothing."

"...N-nothing? He didn't...say what happened? He was right there and...and he didn't...he didn't say anything else?"

Bobby's voice was gentle, "That's what I'm tryin' to say. All he said was 'it didn't work out.' That's it. He never brought it up again and I didn't ask."

Dean heard the scrape of a chair and a heavy slump. The top of a scotch decanter clinked open and a drink was poured and set on the table in front of his brother.

"Now, what the hell is this all about, Sam? What's got you all shook up? Did you see the thing he was talkin' about?"

But Sam's bitter laugh dried the air.

"'It didn't work out?'  _That_  was what he said. Wow. God...Dad..." And then Sam drank the shot and Dean bit the inside of his bottom lip so hard he could taste blood.

"Yeah, that's what he said." Bobby sounded sorry to relate it. His body sat down heavily in another chair. "You wanna maybe...talk about it? Maybe...sort this out?"

Damn. Sam.

"No, he doesn't wanna sort it out." Dean turned the corner and both men looked up. Sam's face was devastated, streaked with quiet tears, and surprised. Bobby less so.

"Was wonderin' if you were gonna join us, or if I was gonna have to start chargin' admission." Bobby sat back, his older, sympathetic yet calculating gaze probably coming to 20 conclusions.

"Dean." Sam stood up and that was when it hit him.  _That little bitch. He planned for me to not be around._

"Sam. Stop. We're not doin' this." Dean pointed the rag at him with finality.

"Dean, Dad didn't leave anything in the journal, in the Impala. I just...Don't you think that's weird? Not saying anything? Not leaving anything behind?"

"No, it's not weird, because Dad didn't haveta talk about family business with anyone.  _Anyone_. And it's over, Sam." Dean had to end it. Completely. There was no dealing with Dad's death  _and_ Sammy going back to a state of catatonia for...weeks.

"It's  _not_  over. That's what I am trying to say!" Sam's voice rose above the sadness, slipped into anger. "Besides, Dad didn't talk about family business with the  _family_ , and isn't that the problem right here? Dad  _never_  talked about it again. For God's sake, he just told Bobby 'it didn't work out,'" he gestured to the whole house.

"It didn't! Sam, it didn't work out. Now shut up about it. Don't look for it. Don't bring it up. For all we know, Dad went back and took care of it and just didn't tell us. Did you ever consider  _that_?"

Sam's chest heaved. He clenched his teeth and shook his head. His voice was quieter. "Dean, you know what he said. Back then. This was on me. And, God, if it wasn't, if that was all a lie too, then..."

"Then what, huh? What, Sam? You couldn't forgive him? You couldn't leave it alone and just...fucking  _leave it alone_?"

It was way too loud. Way too public. This wasn't how to handle this, Dean knew, but all he could think about was Dad. And Dad was gone.  _That man...I_ loved  _that man._

"Dean, I am going to tell Bobby, and I am going to ask him for help." Sam enunciated each word and pointed at the ground resolutely. "This isn't family business. It's  _my_  business, okay? Mine. I have... _have_  to do this."

The big brother closed in on Sam's personal space and he was both angry and more than a little afraid that Sam didn't back down at that point. Of all things, he had to back down to this. Sam was tall, but Dean's fear, his  _resolve_ , more than made up for the difference in height.

"Don't you tell me this is just your business. Don't you  _dare_. I told you it was my fault. Mine. You wanna go back there, Sam? Really? Because you didn't talk for two weeks. I had to fucking dress a ten-year-old kid. Take him to the bathroom. You went so far away, Sam, I didn't think you were ever comin' back. And you wanna do this? Take us  _both_  back there?"

Sam's face cracked.

God, this kid. What the hell. This kid brother who should just listen... _listen_  to himself. Listen to his big brother when he knew what was good for him. For them.

"Dean," Sam's voice was too gentle, "I'm not...I'm not that kid. Not anymore. I changed."

Dean's chest caved.

 _Fuck, I know. I_ know _and that's why. No more changing, Sam. No more! If you change into something else, Dad said..._

"Sammy, you're all I have left. I'm tellin' you. Begging you. Leave this thing alone."

There were two seconds before Sam's shoulders sagged. His whole body language submitted, and he sighed deeply before he shook his head. He wiped his face with his hand and looked away.

"Okay, Dean."

"Sam, I mean it."

"Fine." It was only when Sam put up his hands and physically stepped away that Dean could take a breath and banish the red and fear and anger and the goddamn  _loneliness._

Dean glanced at Bobby. The man had the good decency to have his head down, his eyes hidden under the brim of his baseball hat-invisible in the room.

"Bobby, I broke your torque wrench. I'll replace it. In the meantime, you got any others lyin' around?"

The spell was broken. Bobby stood up. "Yeah. God, what? Broke my torque wrench? What the hell are you torquing out there, the Great Wall of China?"

Dean gave Sam one last look, but Sam was pointedly staring at a wall.

_Whatever. Keep out of it, Sam._

But he didn't.

Weeks later, when his baby girl was almost as good as new again, he saw it-Sam's notebook. It was on his bed.  _Why the notebook, Sam? What were you researching?_  But Dean knew. He didn't have to even pick it up to know.

"I'm sorry, Dean."

Sam was at the door frame. Dean tried to keep everything neutral.

"I told you to let it go."

"I know. But I couldn't, and I have to get you to understand that."

Dean shifted his gaze to his brother's face who looked way too pitying. And guarded.

Jesus.

"What about 'leave it alone' did  _you_ not understand?" But he was keeping calm. The Impala was fixed. They had been making plans to leave Bobby's, to hit the road, and things had been...bearable. So much more bearable than that first week. But the memory of Dad's funeral pyre still kept him up at night and the edge wasn't far off.

"I know what you said," Sam stepped into the room carefully, "but look, I'm..." he tilted his head back and forth, "...okay. I mean, I'm still talking and walking. I'm not...gone, Dean."

Dean took a deep breath, wet his lips and turned his head, not liking the proximity this conversation was going towards things that felt somehow just buried.

"So?"

Sam looked confused, "So, what?"

"So, what did he tell you? Bobby. What did he say?"

Sam looked so relieved, so grateful at his response, that Dean had to let it go. He didn't want this conversation. He wanted his brother and his car and he wanted the road and he didn't care at that point exactly how they got there or where they went as long as they were moving in some direction.

His little brother picked up his notebook and flipped a page. He pressed his lips together and shook his head, "Not much, unfortunately. I mean, the lore on...on the boogeyman is so immersed in cultures around the world that it's hard to separate fact from fiction. And it doesn't help that it's used as a behavior-training concept. You know, 'Go to bed, be good, or...or'"

"It'll get you? Eat you?" Dean finished. He didn't know why that frown on Sam's face made him feel so vindicated. Sam was hardly over this, though his game face was getting better.

"Yeah. According to the lore, the so-called 'boogeyman' ranges from a demon, to an old man with a sack, to an amorphous bad spirit, and practically everything in between. The only thing that seems completely consistent is that it emerges from under a bed or a closet in close proximity to a bed and that it is almost inexorably connected to child fears."

Dean considered. "The truth of it is somewhere smack dab in the middle."

"Yeah, I was thinking that too, but," he shrugged his shoulders at his notebook, "with all of this lore, it's hard to find the middle." His face changed a little as he remembered. "Back...then...Dad said that it had a profile and pattern, but Bobby doesn't know what Dad was talking about except that he's pretty sure Dad nailed that much. And...we know he did. But what Dad knew about the profile?" Sam shook his head and sighed, "it's not gender, and it has something to do with birthdays, and Dad said he tracked it to Osseo..."

Dean interrupted that train of thought because it involved remembering. Remembering  _that_  day. "Does Bobby know how to kill it?"

Sam looked haunted again, "No. Bobby has never heard of anyone ever killing a boogeyman. And Dad didn't either. Remember what he said..."

Dean waved his hand, "Look if we don't have a way to kill it, and we don't know its profile and pattern, then we're leaving it alone."

Sam stood up straight. "You're right.  _We_  are."

Dean looked quickly at his brother's face. "Sam, this is a  _we_ thing if it's anything, you hear me?"

"Look, we have nothing to go on, now, but I'm not trying to hide this from you. Hate it, hate me, but Dean, I can carry this. I need to carry this." He raised his hands into the air. "See me? I'm carrying it."

"Yeah," Dean pushed his duffel bag, packed, into Sam's arms. "Carry this to the car while you're at it, bitch."

Sam smiled and took the bag. "Jerk." God. It was such a real smile.

"But hey," Dean stopped his brother with a hand on his chest before he could go two feet. "Swear to me you won't make a move on this without me. Swear it on something you won't break, Sam." And he was dead serious.

Sam swallowed, and that wasn't a good sign. "I'm not swearing anything, but I'll tell you what I find out. You have a right, okay, and I get that. I owe you."

"No, Sam, it's not about  _owing_. You're my little brother..."

"Dean, please. I don't wanna fight about it. Please. Not now. I'm begging  _you_  on this one."

Sammy's earnest little face. _Sammy. Why do you kill me, Sam? If I'm the good guy, then I let you go into this danger again. But if I try to hold you back...where will you go to get away from me? What the hell kind of choice is this?_

"Fine. Now go tinkle and give Bobby a kiss goodbye. I'll be waiting at the car with your two bottles of water and a coloring book for the road."

Sam smiled a six-year-old smile. "You always knew what I liked."

Dean grinned too, but it was a lie. Inside he was afraid-afraid of the end of it all...

(to be continued...)


	5. "My Friend of Misery"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sammy wants to help, and gifts are exchanged.
> 
> Flash forward: a dream about Dad picks at the scab of memory for both brothers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnnnnd the plot thickens. A lot. :)
> 
> Thank you so much for all of the kind words. Note to self: MYSTERIES ARE HARD! Luckily, there's a little voice named Agelade (check her out! Her SPN pwns) whose enthusiasm for this story has kept it going.

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

**Chapter 5: "My Friend of Misery"**

**May 1, 1993**

**Sam: 9-years-old**

**Dean: 14-years-old**

Sam sat in the lunchroom heavily. He yawned, and when he did his eyelids drooped which necessitated a hasty head shake to wake up. This was the cafeteria, a public place, and Dean's commands to watch his back were running on autopilot. Unfortunately, the combination of sleep deprivation and anticipation were doing a fair job of unraveling whatever reality Sam had left in the world, not that it was much.

" _Monsters exist, Sammy, and when they come out, Dad kills 'em. If you ever see something like a tooth fairy, you run like hell. Yell for me. Got it?"_

The truth was overrated. The truth sucked. What their father did for-let's be honest-a  _hobby_ had taken control of his life and it was turning Dean into something scary, especially now that his brother was getting stronger and faster. In a couple years when he had grown-up muscles for real, he'd ditch Sam to go do those things too. Eventually they'd have to leave Osseo, so what was the point of befriending people?

But...but Amber was different. They had a connection, he knew it. Even if they left this town, it wasn't like he'd  _never_  see her again. And if he could help her a little, wasn't that just as important as what his father did? It didn't cost anything to reach out. It wouldn't affect Dean or anyone else, but maybe this was where he could start to make a difference too.

Blearily, Sam focused every ounce of attention he could muster onto the doors and looked for her. The longer he waited, the more surreal everything became. His senses first muddled and then went to triple overload-children's voices sounded like screams from Bedlam, trays and metal forks clanked and smacked, the lights in the cafeteria became bright, almost hot, and then dimmed to nothingness...

Silence.

_Sam...Sam...Sam..._

_It's better if you don't, Sam. You can't save me._

_Amber? He takes her hand. He smiles gently. It's okay._

_Strangers die every day, Sam._

_That's not a very 3rd-grader thing to say. Are you feeling okay?_

_I'm scared. I'm all alone. Something sees me..._

_Cold fingers. Hands. What do you mean? Do you know?_

_You can sense it, right, Sam? We're...so close..._

_Why are your hands like ice? Why are you so cold?_

_It's cold when you're alone. It's cold. It's cold when you're a monster._

_What?_

_Sam, your Mom always knew about you. She presses his hand sympathetically. Everyone knows. You know too, don't you? But you never say it. That's why you can't. You can't help me._

_Amber?_

_Her eyes are shiny._

_Call me, Sam Winchester._

"Sam?"

At the touch on his arm Sam sat straight up and startled the little girl with the sandy blond hair. She gasped and Sam had to back himself down from complete panic. What was...that just now? When he had been...nodding off? His name? Amber? He shoved it away and down, far down, so that he could damage control his completely ungracious and ungentlemanly wakefulness.

"Hey, Amber. Wow. I'm sorry, are you okay?" He felt his eyebrows come together and it almost hurt. He stretched his hand out and let it rest on the table a few inches from her arm.

To Sam's great relief, Amber swallowed and then smiled that very little smile.

"You were really asleep," she said.

"Oh, was I? Huh." That was scary. This wasn't the first time he had just passed right out in school. He was going to have to swipe a couple of Dean's treasured Cokes if he thought he had any chance of staying awake another night.

That thought led to an observation: Amber didn't look well either. She'd been pretty haggard yesterday, too, and the boy tried to decipher whether that meant she was worse today or not. Her face had been washed, but the skin was almost translucent under the fluorescent lights in the drop ceiling above them. If he stared too long, Sam thought he could see individual little blue veins in her neck and forehead. That couldn't be good.

"Hey, how are you doing?" He asked.

Amber pursed her lips a little and then shrugged. "The same."

There was a short silence-a silence in which Sam fumbled and felt under the microscope. Why was it so  _hard_  to just be normal when he was talking to this girl? Oh. Right. Because there was nothing normal about him.

And this was a  _girl_.

Thankfully his gaze dropped onto the chicken patty sandwich on Amber's tray.

"Hey, let's have a bite to eat, okay?" Anything to get some food in her. She really was the tiniest 3rd grader he had ever seen. As a show of good faith, Sam pulled out his brown bag lunch and dipped inside it for his PBJ sandwich. To his surprise the sandwich (which was almost twice its normal size, leaking peanut butter and jelly into the wax paper like the scene of a horrible evisceration) was accompanied by a Payday candy bar. It slid out onto the table and stared up at Sam as he stared down at it.

Holy crap.

"Did your brother make your lunch again?" Amber asked.

Sam had to close his mouth before he made a reply.

"Yeah...I think." His voice trailed off as he ogled the bleeding sandwich. Had Dean lost his freaking mind? Or wait, shit, did he grab the wrong bag? He had done  _that_  before and it hadn't gone over well at all. In a reflex of pure terror, Sam grabbed the brown bag and inspected it. There was his name, all right. Right there-"Sammy" in black Sharpie. But there was something underneath it, fainter, scribbled in pencil:

" _Eat all of this or I swear I will punch you."_

Sam didn't know whether to laugh or be outraged, and the conflicting emotions the note engendered on top of the sleep deprivation threatened to turn him into a little barking madman. When had Dean done this last night? Sam had been trying to fight off Dean's questions about why he was so out of it all evening, and so to combat sleepiness his brother packed him a lunch full of refined sugar and his most precious Payday bar? Man, he had been totally unfair to his brother.

Sam thought of his two nod-offs in school already.

_Screw it. I'm definitely eating this._

Despite his growing jerkiness, Dean came through in a weird way; right now, this carbohydrate overload was exactly what Sam needed. A shard of guilt for his brattiness the night before was replaced by an absolute hunger for sugar Sam didn't even know he had. He ripped into the white package and sank his teeth into peanutty caramel goodness.

Oh yeah. That was the stuff. Solid fuel to get him through the rest of the day.

"Looks like he did something nice for you," Amber acknowledged and giggled at what must have been an expression of complete bliss and relief.

That giggle was kinda pretty. He wanted to see more of it.

Sam smirked around his chew. "Yeah, and he threatened to punch me if I didn't eat it. It says right here on the bag." He pointed to it. "I need instructions with my lunch. Did your lunch come with instructions?" He motioned to her chicken patty sandwich with mock inquiry and Amber's small laugh, as she shook her head, continued to roll over him like a warm breeze. His efforts were further rewarded when she picked up the top of her bun and bit into it. Yeah, it wasn't the protein, but at least it was something.

They ate for a few minutes in companionable silence while the madhouse of the cafeteria turned around them. Presently, Sam noticed that Amber had stopped moving. He could  _feel_ her watching him expectantly.

But she wasn't looking  _at_  him, she was looking  _toward_  him to the top of his rucksack, the faded and worn green burlap peeking over the edge of the table.

"That's a really old-looking backpack." She commented finally.

Sam followed her gaze and perhaps really noticed it himself for the first time through the eyes of someone outside of the craziness that was his family. It wasn't a child's backpack at all-it was far too big, and the style was more suited to war than school but...

The letter!

Sam jumped as he woke up with the memory.

"Oh, hey, um. I have this thing..." He turned to his pack and opened it. The letter was sitting right on top. To his credit, he didn't even self-consciously check to see if anyone was looking when he slid it across the table to her. "I...hope you don't think I'm...weird. I had to write this assignment..."

Holy crap, was it getting hot in here?

Sam babbled something about Abraham Lincoln, he thought, and then just shut his mouth entirely. Her matchstick fingers touched the paper, almost reverently, and began to unfold it.

"Wait!" he said, feeling like a crazy person. She froze. "I mean...um. Read it later, okay? Like, when you go home."

"Why?" she asked, her long bangs shuddering with the blink of her eyes.

"Because...because then it would be like getting a real letter. It's not...really like a letter if you read it in front of the person who wrote it, right?"

Amber stuck her tongue out just a little bit to lay on her bottom lip. It was a thinking thing. She was happy and excited and wanted to read his letter  _right now_  and that alternately terrified him and made him exuberant past reason. But she nodded once. Hard. Almost as if it was the nod of a secret gesture of Deep Understanding.

She pulled the precious missive closer and then placed something of her own on the table. Amber's face was red and she bit at her bottom lip nervously. She pushed it towards Sam after a few seconds of his just staring at the exterior of what appeared to be a little wrapped package. The "wrapping paper" was a piece of notebook paper that crayon had decorated with a childish yellow daisy bearing what appeared to be a little red dot. His name, "S-A-M," was penciled in at the bottom in blocky 3rd grade letters.

"What's this?" He asked stupidly.

She looked at him with such earnest brown eyes that he thought he might have to crawl under the table or be flattened under their weight. Instead of continuing to force himself up from it, he took it in hand, smiled at the wrapping, and opened it. A plastic ladybug ponytail holder fell into his palm. Upon a fast inspection he realized this was the one she was wearing yesterday, and it wasn't in her hair now. The ladybug was a little black, red, and white thing, a trivial piece of girl apparel Sam rarely took notice of, until yesterday. Until  _her_. It sat in his palm now like a tiny living creature-precious and rare.

_She wore it yesterday. She probably wore it to school today. I bet she wears it everyday. I bet this is her favorite one if she even has more than one._

"I...can't take take this," he said. And he was an idiot because that didn't sound gentlemanly at  _all_  but he just meant it was too much, too nice, too  _everything_ for him to have. And he didn't deserve it because he said he wanted to be friends but he  _knew_  he was going to have to leave.

"Please take it." Her face was insistent. "Unless...it's stupid and you hate it."

Sam had the presence of mind to at least shake his head. "No! It's not. I just. I mean..."

He was doing this thing all  _wrong_  and Amber was still smiling at him anyway. Did he really meet someone who  _got_  him?

"But...why? Why give this to me?"

"It's an early birthday present," she said without hesitation.

Birthday?

Oh shit. What was today?

"It's tomorrow, right?" Amber's question was more like a statement. "But tomorrow is a Saturday, so I wanted to give it to you today."

Sam shook his head. Was this a dream? There were some dreamlike qualities to it. The least of which was that he was just given an honest-to-God present from a girl.

"Oh. Wow. I...told you that?" Birthdays weren't exactly a big deal in Sam's life-not even his father ever treated them the way a normal father would. Except that it seemed to come with "leveling up" to a new stage of training. Where Dean was concerned, birthdays meant a new weapon.

"You told me yesterday," she replied. "I remembered it because my birthday is tomorrow too." She smiled. "Sam, you didn't even know it was my birthday and you gave me a present." Amber touched the envelope of his letter with tiny fingertips.

Wait, what? Did he really just come right out and say when his birthday was? Sam tried to remember, but everything that happened before ten minutes ago was wrapped up in cotton sunk into the middle of a mountain at the heart of the Bermuda Triangle. Getting to those memories was perilous and exhausting and right now this moment felt like it superseded just about every other moment of his life, except, possibly, his birth. Or that one time he played checkers against Dean and beat him-the one and  _only_  time he ever played that game with Dean because Dean  _hated_  losing.

Sam covered his look of surprise, and despite his fondest wishes not to, he couldn't help but wonder what Dean would do in this situation with a girl.

"Oh, a heh. Hey. I'm pretty awesome I guess."

Yes, that would be probably what he said. Which meant it was likely to sound completely wrong to a 3rd grader. But Amber continued to radiate a little grin..

Sam squashed that inner voice that attempted to remind him of his situation, of the complete and utter futility of this, of the high likelihood that her heart was going to suffer.  _Her_ heart.  _But she'll suffer_ now  _if I just...reject her present. She made wrapping paper for it and everything._

"Well then. I guess, if you really want me to, I'll accept it. But now I feel bad because a letter isn't exactly a present..."

"No, it is." She hastily interjected and even sat up straighter in her chair. "I mean. I think it is."

Man, Amber. She was a one-of-a-kind person. Nice. Observant. Thoughtful. And they even had the same birthday! That was a crazycool coincidence. But Sam was worried about that pale skin and sunken eyes, and she had only taken three bites of her chicken sandwich bun. She definitely needed to eat more. Further encouragement was on his lips when she stopped him.

"Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you...sleeping okay?"

 _What? Oh shit._ And, yes, wasn't he  _just_  thinking about how she was observant?

_I can't sleep because the boogeyman is in my closet and might want to kill me._

Wow. It sounded so lame in his head. Not to mention unbelievable and scary to a regular 3rd grader. Just because he was burdened with reality didn't mean he had to curse anyone else with it. And wasn't that Dean's biggest no-no?

" _Whatever you do, you can't tell anyone else about, you know, Dad stuff. They'd just either freak out or think you're crazy and take you from me and Dad. You don't want that, right, Sammy?"_

Luckily Sam had already developed his cover story for lack of sleep earlier that day.

"Oh, um. Well, my brother has had this cold for a couple of nights. We sleep in the same room, so his coughing and sneezing and snoring and stuff keep waking me up. But I think he's getting over it. No big deal." Sam took a manly bite out of his PBJ homicide scene and practiced nonchalance like it was his job. It wasn't the second time he had lied. It wasn't even the hundredth time, and he knew he was fairly proficient at it.

Amber's smile faded. Her face fell.

Sam stopped eating, mostly because his stomach had suddenly crawled into his throat. Every little facial expression she made was like some kind of beacon that had been tugging at him since he sat down. Was this the power of Girls? Even in 3rd grade it was formidable. No wonder Dean was having a hard time resisting them in 8th grade.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

Amber looked down at her chicken patty. She looked at it a little too long. Her mouth opened once as if she was going to say something, and then it closed. Not a good sign.

"Amber?"

"Oh. I was just thinking about how my mom is working all night tonight."

Amber stopped talking and Sam's analytical brain sleepily took over, trying to fill in the piece that would make her frown. "So, she's going to be sleeping all day tomorrow on your birthday?"

She hesitated for a moment and then nodded.

"Oh. Hmm." Sam thought about it. It was his birthday tomorrow too. There was no guarantee he'd see his own father, and he was constantly telling himself he was okay with that, but at least Sam had Dean on his birthday. He always had. He could say a lot of things about his brother, but Dean was always really decent to Sam on his birthday. Amber, on the other hand, was going to be all alone.

What could he do?

There was no way Sam was going to sneak out of the motel room. Saturday morning cartoons were a religious obligation for both brothers, and there was no chance in hell he could escape Dean on his birthday no less. But maybe...

"What if I called you?"

Holy crap. He said the words. He said them and was actually, in his mind, committing to them. For real.

A little bit of the smile came back.

Sam scrambled for that patch of revealing sunlight as he grabbed a pencil from his rucksack. Flattening out the piece of colored wrapping paper and turning it to the uncolored side, he looked up expectantly.

"What's your phone number?"

Holy crap. He just asked a girl for her phone number.  _Holy. Crap._

"333-1816."

The pencil felt like a hot brand in his hand, the paper like an anvil, and he was constructing something real. Something permanent. For some reason, his hand shook. He didn't know how he was going to call her and not raise all kinds of hell in the motel room tomorrow, but he was going to do it. This was something important:  _Somebody needed him._

When Sam left lunch, he was riding on a sugar high and some unfamiliar sensation of empowerment...which lasted only until 3pm. And then it was if Sam had physically run into the side of a mountain and crashed. Hard.

* * *

**Flash forward**

**March 3, 2007**

**Sam 23-years-old**

**Dean 27-years-old**

Dean sat straight up. Being completely clothed and passed out on top the thin motel covers made it easier for him to get up, get his bearings, and then half fall to Sammy's side and shake him.

"Sam. Sammy!"

Jesus, this kid couldn't just sleep. Still couldn't.

"Dad!"

Shit.

Sam's eyes flew open. He grabbed his brother's arms and looked around wildly, a white-V-neck T-shirt eskew on his broad frame.

"Dean? Where...where's Dad?"

Dean pushed it all down.  _Game face it, Big Brother. Game face._

"Dad's dead, Sam. Not here. Get a grip." And then his voice softened because the look on Sam's face was like he was three feet tall again. "Hey, Sammy. You were dreaming."  _Nightmaring?_  He hesitated too long. "Was it...was it one of  _those_ dreams? Those, um...psychic visions?"

Sam calmed. He began to breathe, but his eyebrows were going to pinch the scalp right off of his head. He licked his lips.

"I...I don't know. I don't know. Maybe. It felt...different. How...how could I see Dad? Dad's in hell. He's...in  _hell,_ Dean!"

"Okay, okay. Just. Just relax." Dean squeezed his eyes shut for a second. He'd been pouring them out for Dad all night, right down his throat, and maybe that hadn't been such a good idea in retrospect. He felt dizzy.

"What happened? What did you see?" Getting dream signals from hell was impossible, right? And If he was seeing Dad now then it couldn't be a premonition dream.  _Don't be paranoid, Dean. Kids can have nightmares about their Dads when they die. It probably happens to everyone._

Sam's expression blanked, reached back, tried to remember. "I don't know. It was weird, like, I saw Dad and...And there was a box."

"A box? Like, a curse box? Or a cardboard box?"

"No...s...silver. The box was silver. It reflected light."

"Okay, a silver box." Dean ran down a mental inventory of everything they had, everything they knew Dad owned. A box like that was nowhere. "Okay, where was he? What was he doing?"

"I...don't know. I couldn't see the room. It felt small. Maybe. It felt like...the box was important though. Like, he was...trying to show me this box."

Sam's tears leaked out onto Dean's arm. It was an impressive flow.

Fuck.

"Sam, it was probably just...just a dream."

"No, wait." Sam snagged Dean's wrist, his eyes scanning the empty air. "I do remember something from the room. It...it smelled like..." He stopped.

"Yeah? It smelled? Like what?"

"Like. Like green."

Dean blinked. "Wait, what? The room was green?"

"No!" Sam said insistently, "It...it  _smelled_  like green."

" _Smelled_  like green? How the hell does green smell, Sammy? Like...like grass? Like weed?"

The little brother shook his head, "I don't...no. No it wasn't like grass. I would have said it smelled like grass."

Dean opened his mouth. Shut it.  _Gather the calm, Dean, don't spook the little psychic or disturb his wavelengths to the ether._

"Okay, so...green. It smelled like a color." Dean was incredulous.

Sam shook his head, "I know. I just. I can't describe it. I can't even be sure anymore. I don't know. But, Dean, it really felt like...like Dad was trying to show me something."

That pinged a note of concern for Dean. Dad's last words to Sam were embedded at the end of a fight. Dad's last words to Dean were in his ear...and Sam could never ever know them. Not ever. But Sam's dreams were getting more uncanny, out of control. They seemed linked to Yellow Eyes, and what if Sam figured out their father's whispered message on his own?

"Sam."

Sam grabbed Dean's arms and this time it  _hurt._

"Dean, I couldn't do it. You understand, right? You know why."

"Hey, just...Sam." And Dean knew instinctively that Sam was no longer talking about his dream. He was talking about the past.

"He was right  _there._ Yellow Eyes was right there...and Dad was hanging onto him, inside...and Dad told me to shoot him. In the  _heart_. He told me to shoot. He...he trusted me to do it. I had the gun in my hand, Dean, I had the shot and he told me...but how could he say that to me? How could he just...just expect me to...to kill  _him_ too? Is it...is it really all my fault?"

Oh no. Oh shit. There was a wild look in Sam's eyes and then it all broke open. No amount of Winchester floodgates were going to hold this back. "To kill him to kill Yellow Eyes with the Colt? Was that what I should've done? Those were...those were practically his last words to me."

Bad. Very bad.

"Sammy, stop! No one could expect you to do that. To kill Dad. Listen to me-"

"Why not?" Sam's voice was hoarse, loud. He stabbed an accusing finger at nowhere. " _He_ did. He did, Dean. He expected that I had learned that lesson when I was  _nine_. He said that to me in the hospital-you were  _there._  He blamed me for it because I was  _supposed_  to've learned that damn lesson when I was a kid and I...I clearly  _didn't_."

Dean shook Sam hard enough to rattle teeth. He was about to lose his own shit, and that could not happen when Sam was a mess. Had to be a rock. "Listen to me. Shut up and listen to me, Sam. He was just saying that because you were pushing his buttons. He was pushing yours. That's what you did. What you both did all the damn time. He didn't expect you..."

Sam became eerily calm, pooled tears in his eyes.

"Dean, he's dead."

"Sam."

"He's dead because he made a deal. He made a deal with the demon he hated to save you."

"Sam," warning tones were completely useless, but Dean was going to have a melt down. This wasn't...

" _Why_  did he have to make that deal? If I had shot him when he told me to, then we wouldn't have been hit by the truck. He's right. We wouldn't've been in that position..."

"Sammy, you gotta stop!"

" _...But if I had killed Dad, you would've hated me forever_!"

The room became silent. Dean searched Sammy's maddened eyes and something in him crumbled.

"I couldn't hate you, Sammy. Do you understand me?" Hate this kid? This stupid, smart kid who used to repair injured bird wings, read encyclopedias, write stories that he hid or threw away before Dad could find them? Who begged his big brother to read him comic books about the tales of heroic knights and super heroes? Who patiently listened when Dean told him that their Dad was the greatest? Hate that kid?  _I carried you out of a burning building. I raised you. You tugged my shirt tails. I was your hero._

"You have to believe me, Sam. I could never hate you." His own voice betrayed the wetness in his eyes.

"You say that, but Dean..." Sam was inconsolable, "but he, he was...he was our only Dad, and the guy...that... _man_...was a shitty father but he was your dad. Our Dad. How could he have wanted me to...to...how could he have wanted to lay that on me too? Wasn't Mom's death enough? How much did he  _hate_  me?"

Dean grabbed Sam, then. It was a hug hard enough to break his back-to make him quiet. His arms ached, and his chest was split open and raw. He could feel the sweat drenching Sammy's back, the sobs that wracked the enormous frame that sheltered a spirit still so vulnerable.

"Sammy, you didn't start this...and Dad didn't hate you...I swear," but Dean was lying because he no longer knew. After Dad's last words to him, what he put on Dean's shoulders, it felt like Dad must have hated them both. Or else he was a coward. And Dean didn't know what hurt worse of the two.

John Winchester's presence was almost palpable in the room hanging over the two grown men who clung to each other for dear life.

Sam's voice was tiny in his ear.

"Dean, how do I make it right? So many already. So many I didn't save because...I was afraid...because I couldn't shoot..."

Dean's blood froze.

"You aren't a killer, Sammy."

 _Please...please never become a killer...because I can't kill_ you _. I can't do it._

_(to be continued...)_


	6. "St. Anger"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sammy is really really really sleep deprived and Dean is taking his own measures to find out what the heck is wrong with his little brother. Angst ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late post. I was on vacation last week. :) If you're liking it, let me know!

 

 

 

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

**Chapter 5: "St. Anger"**

**May 1, 1993**

**Sam: 9-years-old**

**Dean: 14-years-old**

_Sam...Sam...Sam Sam Sam..._

_You have interesting things in here, Sam._

_Who are you?_

_I bet you don't even know what's here. There's so much more. Did you see this? A lady on the ceiling. Fire. There's a door here I want to open._

_What the fuck are you? Groping around in the darkness. I know the darkness. What is that? That voice is cold, hissy. It's not a real voice. Is it a voice? Am I just thinking this?_

_I think I will open it. Someone might be mad..._

_Where are you? What do you look like? Who will be mad? Is this me talking?_

_With you, Sam, it's easier and harder. Easier and harder. Every inch, every breath, every thought, every worry. Easier and harder...and I like that the best._

_Are you in my head? Is this me? I'm cold. Stop thinking. Be quiet. I'm going to be quiet._

_I'm going to just open it once. Once should be enough. You worry about it all the time and you don't even know..._

_The eye. An eye. It's you, isn't it? Leave it alone. Leave everything alone!_

_Smiling voice. Thoughtful voice. What is in here, Sam? I want to watch it..._

_Not me. It's not me. Nothing. No one. Go. Not listening. Go away. Cold here. Freezing. Dying! leave me alone. Alone. Alone! I don't want to be alone!_

_Don't worry. I'll take you with me...Sam._

"Sam? Sammy!"

Sam's head hurt. It was pressed against the back seat of a green bus bench. He had been out; there hadn't been the sound of children in the background, only a dull yellowish buzzing when he woke up. It could only have been a few seconds of oblivion, that's all, but apparently it had been enough to put Dean into some state. Sam could feel that his pulse was up for whatever reason, even though he was just so damn tired. Ignoring it, Sam pulled himself out of the seat and into the aisle at their stop, but if it hadn't been for his older brother's arm, he'd have fallen off the bus steps and been happy to lay on the pavement with a possible concussion. That would have meant real sleep, right?

But Dean's hand on him was solid and steadying, and eventually the bus drove away and it was just the two of them. Sam tried to get his bearings because as much as he wanted to sleep, he wanted to talk about  _why_  he was in this position even  _less_. He said nothing to Dean's sharp demands for an explanation. He didn't complain when the rucksack switched places from his arm to Dean's. His pride dragged along with his feet.

Walking back to the motel was going to be a challenge.

Oh. Sleep deprivation was psychological torture. It was the real deal. He'd give so much right now for ten minutes of uninterrupted sleep right here, in the light of day, if it could be  _safe_. And really...was the agony worth it? If he had just been seeing things, then what was the point of subjecting himself to the torture? None.

...And yet, he felt he was running in some kind of race. If he slowed down, if he stopped, the race would end. He wouldn't lose, it would all just end-no consolation prize. No second chances.

Something smacked the back of his head hard enough to pull him out of the marathon.

"...Are you listening to me?  _Sammy_. You've been totally out of it for two days. What the hell is going on?"

Sam stopped and turned completely around. "I haven't been 'out of it,' Dean. Want me to rate your chances with the cheerleader based on your lame bus conversations? I've been paying attention."

"Yeah? Well if you have, then you know she thinks I'm adorable."

Sam gave Dean a look. "She tries to talk like those girls from Southern California. Everything 'gags' her. I'm embarrassed for you."

His brother smirked. "Don't be. You haven't seen her in gym shorts."

"Then I'm embarrassed for  _her_. She doesn't know you live in a motel..."

_Where the boogeyman is waiting to take me..._

Sam felt dizzy. The horizon tilted. Dean grabbed Sam's shirt, bringing him back to the moment, and immediately Sam thought he might get pounded, public street or not, for the low comeback...but Dean only slapped a hand to Sam's forehead. In his younger brother's confusion Dean was able to hold it there for a few seconds before Sam realized he was primitively taking his temperature and pushed him off.

"Okay, Einstein, back to the motel. You're officially grounded."

"What? Grounded because I'm  _not_  sick or because..."  _Because I reminded you our lives suck._ Sam stumbled as he put his right foot in front of his left.

"No, because you wobble like you drank a 5th of Jack."

Despite Sam's external frown, he didn't really mind Dean's hand on his arm. He didn't mind listening to Dean talk either. Dean sure liked to talk. Mostly like an idiot these days, or loaded with threats, but even so, the sound of his voice was...reassuring in its own way.

"I'm not drunk," he mumbled.

"I know that."

And the tone of Dean's voice was...worried? The younger brother bristled, but then Dean grabbed Sam's arm when he tripped over a rock. A stupid little  _rock_. Okay, that was embarrassing.

"If you won't tell me, you'll have to tell Dad."

Sam's stomach plummeted and suddenly he was wide awake.

 _Oh, God no. Please, not that_.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later Sam was still pleading his case, his pride completely nonexistent. When Dean fit the key in the lock it was clear Dad wasn't back yet, thank God. There was still some time to stall, though it was fantastically hard to move his brother from a course of action once it had been decided.

"I'm telling you, I'm just tired. That's it. That's all."

"Yeah, you keep saying that." Dean stalked Sam through the room after dropping his rucksack on one of the two chairs at the particle-board laminated table that could have also passed as a night stand. "So, why aren't you sleeping?  _Explain_  it to me, Sammy."

Sam threw himself onto his cot. "I don't know. Maybe I can't sleep on this thing."

"What, is that all? Then sleep on my bed and I'll take the cot."

Sam swallowed. Despite how jerkish Dean could be, he was quick to trade places, to just shoulder another of Sam's burdens. It confused everything so much more.

"No, I'll keep the cot. Whatever." He stared at the closet. Totally closed. No eyes. "I'll take a nap and be fine." Oh ho ho. He was a good liar to himself, too. As if he'd risk it. Dean would let him nap all evening and never wake him up later, when it got dark, and then the closet would open...

Sam shivered.

"Sleep then," Dean commanded. "Whatever.  _If_  you sleep..."

Sam sat up. He turned his legs to the floor and sat there, staring at the closet, his back to his brother. That  _fucking stupid thing_.  _What the hell are you? Are you really the boogeyman? What do you want from me? What do you_ want?

"Does this have something to do with Amber?"

Sam blinked. He turned around and stared at his brother. His tired brain, used to processing these kinds of loaded questions, was running on less than half power.  _What?_

Dean gazed back levelly, a car magazine opened to a random page in his lap-some kind of failed attempt to be casual-except Dean's eyes were cross-calculating every line of Sam's face for a confession in reaction...and Sam had just given it to him.

"Is it girl problems, Sam? Is that it? Is that why you pay attention to my 'bus conversation?'"

And Sam missed the note of hope in Dean's question that he had figured it out. It wasn't until later that Sam realized Dean wanted his brother's affliction to be something as mundane as "girl trouble" and not anything worse. But at that moment, all Sam could feel was anger and betrayal.

"What the hell, Dean, are you  _spying_  on me?"

Dean tossed the magazine aside. "You're like a freaking  _zombie_. You  _walk into walls_  at school, Sammy, I already have the lowdown on that. I wouldn't haveta spy if you'd just tell me what's going on yourself."

Sam jumped up, adrenaline pumping the sleep out of him. " _It's none of your business._ " Sam was exasperated. "How did you do it? Tell me right now."

Dean threw his hand out. "See? You would have seen this a mile out if you could pay attention to a damn thing that's going on around you besides a girl and la la land."

Sam balled a fist. Dean's  _authority_  be damned. He had crossed a line, and they both knew it. "Leave her out of it. I asked a question."

Dean sat up. "Fine. That glasses kid on the bus with the straight-across bangs," Dean zipped his fingers across his forehead. "He's in your class, brainiac."

Sam processed the description. Andrew Anderson. A really plain name for a mostly unnoticeable kid. He sat two rows behind Sam and to the right. Holy crap. His brother really had been spying on him.

"When did you..."

"Yesterday afternoon. Found him in the bus line getting roughed up while you were bringing up the rear. He has a little problem with some 5th grade dickwad named Robert, so I cut him a deal." Dean laughed mirthlessly to himself. "You really did miss that. You're more out of it than I thought."

"So, what, now, you're a  _mercenary?_ "

"Oh, hey, that sounds cool when you say it like that, but no. It was  _quid pro quo._ Ya know, 'you do something for me, I do-'"

"I know what it means, Dean." Usually the quiet ones like Andrew were the observant ones. Sam would know. As much as he hated to admit it, Dean had picked an unnervingly reliable source. And since this entire deal with the kid had gone down waiting for the bus yesterday and presumably this very afternoon, Dean had unwittingly made a point that Sam had to concede: The sleep deprivation was affecting him to an almost dangerous degree.

"You sharpened your pencil nine times before lunch," Dean ticked it off on his fingers, "and once after lunch. Were you just more awake? I guess you ate my Payday," his brother had the audacity to smile about it. "Good boy."

Sam gave him a withering look. "That's what your bully services bought you? A record of pencil sharpening and proof I ate your stupid lunch? Great job, Dean. You're a regular James Bond."

Dean stood up, "Bumping into walls, Sam. And giving notes to girls at lunch. Some third grader named Amber? She's a sick kid, misses a lot of school, and has no known friends. So what's the deal? Are you lovebirds? Are you doing the elementary 'talking' thing or what? Is there something wrong with her?"

_Really? Really, Dean? Do you have to push all of my buttons at once?_

Sam wasn't sure what pissed him off more, the knowledge that his brother had been  _spying_  on him, or the fact that he might actually know more about Amber than Sam.

"I already said it's none of your business, Dean. And don't try to change the subject. This isn't about her, it's about you-"

"Fine, Sam." Dean cut him off. "You look me straight in the eye, then, and tell me nothing's wrong. Everything is just fine. If you can do that, then I'll say sorry. Maybe.  _If_  you can."

It was issued as a challenge-one Sam knew Dean thought was sure he'd win. It was one thing to lie, but to be caught in a lie and still insist the truth of a lie was just...cowardly. And Sam was not a coward, and Dean knew that too. Either way he answered, if Sam said he was okay, he'd be calling himself a coward, and if he owned up to his issues to Dean's face, then Dean had justification for his deception.

Except Dean never realized there was a third option...

Sam took a step forward, looked right up into his brother's eyes and said, "Just because I'm dealing with something doesn't give you the right to spy on me. Sometimes I have to handle my own stuff-sometimes I  _want_  to handle my own stuff-by myself, Dean."

Sam turned away to let his brother process  _that_. Dean stood there without a comeback, probably for the first time in his life, while Sam crossed to the table, sat down and opened the top of his bag. Sam knew he was changing well-established but tacit rules of Sam Winchester Acceptance and Behavior, and that was bound to cause friction with Dean who worked really hard to be able to do one thing right: "Take care of Sam." Yeah, well, Dean didn't have the market cornered on the whole "changing" thing; Sam was growing up too.

In the quiet that followed, Sam began mechanically pulling books out of his rucksack. In the front pocket, as he was taking out a pencil, he saw the little red and black hair tie and the piece of colored wrapping paper with Amber's phone number on it. He allowed himself a few seconds to wonder how she was doing, and if he could ever get Dean to leave the motel for five minutes so he could call her tomorrow. Not likely.

As if reading his mind, Dean said, "Is it a girl thing, Sammy? Just tell me that much. I could help with that."

"I seriously doubt that," Sam murmured.

Dean must have taken that as an invitation to proceed to phase two, the Helping Little Brother phase, conveniently ignoring everything Sam had just said because that was another thing that Dean did expertly. He sat down at the table opposite his brother with a Coke and a bag of Doritos.

"Taking care of a sick little girl. That's like you, Sam. And it's not a bad idea because chicks dig a sensitive guy who gives them attention when no one else does. But, that sort of stuff makes them more likely to, you know,  _get attached._ "

Dean's voice trailed off leaving the rest of the sentiment unspoken: ... _and we can't get "attached."_

"I know." Sam said, but he was tired and he winced at how close his brother had dropped anchor. Sam could feel Dean's eyes scrutinizing him, and despite the part of his little brother brain that just wanted to think Dean was an idiot, the reality was that he wasn't. He was too damn observant when he wanted to be. "No one is getting attached."

He was only a coward if he was  _caught_ in the lie and refused to admit it. So far, Dean only suspected. If he went through Sam's stuff and found the ponytail holder and phone number, little brother would be completely sunk. Sam made a mental note to sneakily pull them out and hide them under his mattress, sleep with them under his pillow, or just flat out hang onto them all night. It wasn't like he was going to be sleeping anyway.

"Hmm. Well, that's good." Dean leaned over the table, trying to push his Women Wisdom as far as it would go. "You're in 4th grade, so if you want a little female companionship you gotta look for the girls who wear the bright fresh clothes every day. Ya know. The ones with all of that plastic neon jewelry and boy band shirts. Those are the shallow girls, and they're easy to pick up for a chat and drop later."

"Dean, do you listen to yourself? You sound creepy."

Dean actually laughed at that in a way that seemed almost smug.

"What? It's not creepy, it's just  _survival_. I mean, you can't live without them, but you have to know how to let them down easy. I'm telling you, stick to the shallow girls. At least you know you can easily be replaced next week. And they can too, for that matter. It's more humane, Sammy. Isn't that your deal?"

Sam stared a straight line through the thick green canvas to the precious little girl treasure he had received. For the first time in his life it struck him that his brother's philosophy of relationships outside of this family was...actually really sad.  _Survival_  he had called it. Well, Sam wasn't willing to sacrifice that all. He didn't want to establish relationships just so they could be wound up, tied up, and carted around like a fishing line forever. He was tired and their father's road seemed endless, hopeless.

"I don't want to talk about it." Sam said quietly, avoiding his brother's eyes. The tabletop blurred in his vision.

"Sammy," Dean's hand took a firm hold of his brother's arm. "Seriously, go take a nap. You're freaking me out."

Sam coughed the emotion out of his posture and managed to wipe his face down with his free hand to casually whisk away the moisture in his eyes. He shrugged off his brother's arm, not too hard, but not like a wimp either. "I will, later," he lied. He sounded sincere. "Right now I want to do this homework."

It worked. Perhaps a little. Sam guessed it was that enigmatic love of academics that Dean couldn't comprehend which shielded the truth and spared him any more of this inquisition. He began to carefully and neatly lay out his black and white marbled composition notebook, history book, pencil, and pencil sharpener, mentally cataloging the task at hand. He hoped his brother would get bored now and go back to reading their father's car magazine or turn on the TV, but Dean appeared to be just getting comfortable. Too comfortable. Sam opened the text book, willing the letters to stop swimming around and stay put so he could read them. Apparently completely oblivious to the tension in the room he had established, Dean proceeded to smirk at the commencement of school work the way Dean smirked at anything that seemed wholly ridiculous to him.

"Something funny?" Sam asked casually, trying to keep his temper under control and the vision of the book from swirling as he opened it up to page...364. The end of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Abraham Lincoln had destroyed his health trying to reunite the North and the South, and he died in a theater after everything was over. Was it beautiful or sad?

"Yeah, homework. The way you actually do it." Dean took a sip of his Coke and set it on the table. He expertly grabbed two sides of the Doritos bag and opened in, dipping in for a fluorescent orange wedge. "You know, Dad says it should only take about a couple days here, tops. Yet, you keep rolling out the books like it counts for something. Relax and take that nap, Smart Guy."

Sam felt a pang in his chest. "I can't explain it. You won't get it," Sam said softly, almost regretfully, as he pulled his composition book towards him and opened it up. He hadn't meant it to sound so...pitiful, but he was tired and sometimes it was just so  _frustrating_  to try to get anyone in this family to understand him.

"What's there to get? Honestly," the open-mouthed crunching was a bit nauseating, "a bunch of total sheep. School's a system for  _them_ , Sammy. You don't need it.  _We_ don't need it."

Maybe it was the sleep deprivation. Maybe it was that totally off-handed tone that got under Sam's skin. Maybe it was the fact that, once again, Sam had to go on the defensive. Bad timing, Dean. Bad day. "You want to know why?" Sam slapped his pencil onto the table. It hurt, but it got Dean's attention. "I'll tell you why. When you shoot seven empty beer cans off of a log without missing, Dad let's you reload. That's your equivalent of  _Christmas_  Dean. It just means a chance to show off again, and again, if you keep hitting the target, but you grin about that for  _days_."

Sam saw that the smile had gone from Dean's face, but he couldn't stop.

"That's what it feels like for me, okay? When I get a stupid letter on a paper. When the letter happens to be an A. That's my I-killed-all-the-bad-guys moment. Don't talk about it like it's nothing, Dean." Sam could feel his heart pounding away in triple time in his chest, and his cheeks were hot. It wasn't worth getting worked up like this. He might as well have slammed his pencil down to declare "blah blah blah" for all the good any explanations would do.

Despite, that, however, there was a silence in the room, between Dean's eyes and his. And it was too heavy.

"It...It's not the same, Sammy." Dean turned in his chair, his growing legs bumping into the center support, "Dad is Dad. It's you, me, and Dad, kid. I'm saying, who gives a shit about anyone else? Seriously, you let it make you sick. What's the point of that?"

"What's the point?" Sam shook his head slightly, quickly, once again exasperated by the complete blinker vision his brother had to life in general. "One look from Dad in the wrong way and it's like the end of the world. Seriously, Dean. Like the end. Of the World." He punctuated "end" and "world" with a beat of his hand on his history book.

"Shut up, Sam."

Sam ignored the warning tone. It was actually a little too easy to ignore. All the filters in his head that calculated specific responses and consequences was set to the "off" position. Part of him wondered what would actually happen if he pushed and if it matched all of those models of nuclear fallout he had constructed in his head.

"You said it's not the same, and it's not. It's not the same because your universe revolves around Dad and the Missions and mine doesn't. But you make it. You and Dad both." Sam's hands went to his hair. When he grabbed it, it kind of woke him up a little. Made things clearer. Hurting himself made hurting Dean hurt less. "You  _make_  it, and then you tell me to suck it up and deal with it. And I do. I always do. But don't...don't treat me like the stuff that's important to me doesn't matter!"

Sam heard the chair slide back angrily. He thought maybe he would get hit and his eyes squeezed shut in anticipation. But then he heard the sound of the side of Dean's fist pounding the door. When his hands let go of his hair and he could look up, Dean was standing in front of the door, fist still resting against it, and Sam could almost feel the conflict. He wanted to go out. Dean wanted to leave the room, cool off, maybe go break something or get into trouble ...but he didn't. No, he couldn't.

Why? Because Dad told him not to leave Sam by himself. It was the Order of Orders. Babysit the 9-year-old, and he didn't even have to have an "or else," because it was Dad. And Dad would backhand Dean against the wall for disobeying if it was serious enough. He'd do it without a second thought so that next time he'd learn...

The irony of the moment wasn't lost on the younger brother. He had just trapped Dean with the truth. And it was pitiful and terrible. And suddenly all desire to see the outcome of his words went away in the silence of his big brother's hunched back and clenched hand. Who was Sam kidding? They were both trapped here- it wasn't just him. The difference was that Dean had come to love their jailer and Sam wanted to be loved by him. It really wasn't that big of a difference after all.

" _P.S. I get mad a lot, it's true, but I don't mean to make other people sad."_

That's what he had told Amber. He didn't mean to, or maybe he did. Maybe he wanted to push his hurt onto Dean, but he didn't, he couldn't  _lose_  him. Not if Dean was still willing to worry about him.

Sam had messed up. Lack of sleep was making it so hard to control his emotions and he felt his eyes tear up. He didn't like looking at Dean's back.

"Hey, Dean..."

Dean didn't move. Sam had to push down the irrational little panic caused because he couldn't see his brother's face. Whatever Dean was thinking, he wasn't saying it. And if he wasn't yelling it, chances were he wasn't going to say it. Ever.

He could fix this. He could fix it. He had to fix this.

"Hey, Dean. 8th grade. What's it like beyond the scary 'do not enter' sign?"

Homework could wait.

It wasn't even a little strange how his priorities suddenly shifted either. Sixty seconds ago Sam had wanted Dean to just leave him alone so he could work. Now nothing mattered but getting over this radio silence. Sam had expected yelling. He had almost wanted it so that he could throw all of his own feelings against it and watch it stick, or watch them slide down. The emptiness from Dean gave him nothing, and it worried him even more. At all costs, he had to bring this back.

"Dean? I…heard you don't get recess in middle school. What do you do when you can't show off your acrobatics on the jungle gym?"

Dean straightened, his fist unclenched slowly. Sam hoped his sigh of relief hadn't been too audible.

There was a pause.

"Are you kidding? Jungle gyms are for babies. There's no recess, but there are plenty of other things to like about it." He turned around and Dean's expression was one of pleased confidentiality. He even looked left and right as he came back to his chair, as if someone in the room would hear him, as if he was about to relate something wonderfully juicy to a trusted conspirator. All vestiges of the pain from a few seconds ago seemed gone. It was fast, but then again, Dean was unpredictable lately.

In spite of his relief, Sam gave his brother an unconvinced smile. "Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Boobs. Boobs, Sam," Dean's hands hefted the weight of imaginary mounds of glorious girl-flesh. His grin was almost criminal.

Sam rolled his eyes and thunked his forehead down on his composition book. "Seriously, Dean?" His voice was muffled by the paper.

"Sammy, you can't even believe it. You can see across to the high school field from our side of the building. P.E. is 3rd period and It's like, bye bye grade school, hellloooooo nurse. All those 'Little Suzy's' are filling out all over the place." Dean drummed out a couple of beats with his hands on the table. "And they don't hide them either. Girls. Man…girls. Legs that go up to their eyebrows. Short shorts. Sammy, wait till you get there. Man, they will be all over you." Dean smacked Sam in the arm, and his little brother understood that he was supposed to feel very pleased by such an unwarranted compliment.

"Gross, Dean."

"What? Gross? Your little baby face and that thing you do with your eyes when you get pouty? Man, girls eat that shit up."

Sam scowled, but not seriously. Dean was actually more animated and relaxed now than he had been in weeks. The moodiness, the long showers, the clenched fists, the lengthening and repeated silences where there used to be poop jokes or experiments with swearing…yes, _this_  was charted territory again. Everything was right with the world for this moment.

"What about the classes? What do you learn in there? Do you get to do labs in chemistry or dissect stuff?"

Dean made a face. "What, are you kidding? The labs are the only good part. Didja know that salt can be used to make an explosive?"

"Yeah, I knew that. Salt has a long history of uses. But wait, did you get to explode something with salt?" Sam sat up, excited, his eyes becoming round. But then he sat back as Dean shook his head with disappointment.

"Yeah, right. Like they'd let us do anything that might actually be dangerous and cool."

"Well, then…how did you know? You mean you actually let them teach you something?" Sam couldn't exactly hide his sarcasm.

"Hey, man. I learn what I need to learn. If it'll be useful, I'll learn it. But most of the time it's not useful, so what's the point? I'm getting the education I need from Dad and sometimes from shop. Have you seen the wooden stakes I made? You can get a really sharp-ass tip from a grinder." He raised his eyebrows before he flashed a smug grin.  "The bottom line is, I'm learning what I need, not what they want, and I don't care. But so what? If you like school so much, if you want to help a sick girl, if it means that much to you, I'll shut up about it…as best as I can IF…" Dean suddenly leaned forward, his raised finger a couple inches from Sam's face. The "if" created a space of silence that bridged a gap where once the silence had divided them.

"If?"

"If you stop worrying about whatever it is and get some sleep."

Dean's Big Brother voice was getting deeper. It was almost authoritative now.

"If you take a little siesta, get rid of the crazy dark circles, I'll give you your birthday present early. Come on, It's pretty cool…" Dean's voice arched up at the end, the promise of something that was worth this one little favor he was asking.

Dean wasn't telling him to go to bed. He was trying to bribe him,  _begging_  him. Dean didn't bribe and he didn't beg as a general rule which meant he was really worried, and Sam had been so caught up in his fear of losing his pride that he hadn't been paying attention to the fact that Dean was compromising his own pride by degrees just to find out what was wrong.

_Ahh, Dean. I'm a shitty little brother sometimes._

Sam liked to think his brother was just a jerk. He liked to think that his brother was one of his captors. He liked to think that the reason Dean laughed off Sam's academic accomplishments was because he was jealous he wasn't as smart as Sam. He liked to think these things because then it justified all of the rage inside of him that he had to keep pushed down so tightly. But every once in awhile, Sam could see Dean as a fellow inmate who had been too young for whatever role he was shoved into, and that he was smart. Really, really smart. And, actually, as big brothers went, Dean was probably the best.

Sam had been so recently targeting him as the enemy for changes that maybe Dean couldn't control. They had never been like that when they were little, and maybe this was all hard for Dean too.

Sam's face fell. He looked at the top of the table. Maybe it had been the conversation, or the sleep deprivation, or the hint of something like a sensitive human being inside his brother's idiocy, or maybe it was Sam's own fear of alienating the last person with whom he had any real ties…

"Dean…If I tell you something, you have to promise not to laugh."

Dean sat back slowly. Thoughtfully.

"I make no such promises. Tell me anyway."

"I think…I think there's something in the closet…and it watches me at night."

What would a normal big brother do at this point? What was the litmus test for such a revelation by a 9-year-old? Sam really thought it should be a hearty bit of laughter and some condescending joke. Instead, Dean stared at him for a second and then looked up at the closet door. And then he nimbly exited his seat and crossed to his own bed, reaching his hand under his pillow to pull out the nickel-plated pearl-handled .45 his father had given him. Like something out of a movie, Sam watched as Dean checked the chamber for a bullet and then covered the closet door as he cautiously approached it.

Sam wasn't sure if his brother was being serious at this point or faking the seriousness just to get a bigger laugh later. He slid out of his seat anyway and followed behind him, heart beginning to pound. The door was closed.

"Dean."

"Sammy, move to the side of the door. When I tell you to, turn the knob and throw it open."

That voice was not a joking voice. It didn't waver. Dean was being completely serious. Sam felt the blood leave his fingers and toes and his face. Something about Dean thinking it was real danger somehow  _made_ the danger real. But that's not what Sam had wanted, was it? He had really wanted Dean to laugh at him. If he had laughed, then Sam had been imagining things, and he was just stupid and could get over it. Right? If there was something in this closet…

"Dean…"

"Do it, Sam!"

Sam shook slightly as he moved into place. He watched Dean's face as he aimed the loaded weapon. The intensity was terrifying. And then Dean nodded and Sam opened the door.

Silence. Dean's gun arm moved with his eyes like Dad had taught him.  _You can't shoot what you aren't looking at, and don't look unless you are ready to shoot._ Dean was ready to shoot.

There was nothing in the closet but the vacuum cleaner circa 1965, and three shirts. None of which looked in the least bit suspicious. Nevertheless, Dean wasn't satisfied until he had pushed the shirts around, inspected the vacuum cleaner, and began pushing on the back of the closet.

"Tell me about it," he commanded as he worked methodically.

Sam stood stupidly next to the closet door. He was so mixed up right now. He wanted help, but he didn't. He didn't want it to be real. He wanted to feel safe, but this was just making him more scared. Sam felt faint. He was tired and he didn't want to fight and he didn't want to think he was being stalked. He wanted to think his Dad was just an angry, crazy, bitter, obsessed man. That it could be all just a circus he'd have to endure until he was able to get out. Maybe he could even convince Dean to go with him…

"Sam! Tell me."

Sam shook his head. "I saw it the first night we were here. There's always a click first; that's the door unlatching. It opens just an inch or two. I thought…I thought I saw eyes. They were…shiny, like hematite. They didn't blink that I ever saw but…but I felt like I was being watched. So I just…watched it back."

The heel of Dean's palm pressed into the top of his forehead and then slid off as he did the calculation of sleep lost. "Jesus, Sammy, that was days ago. It happens every night?" Sam looked away, embarrassed, but nodded. "Why didn't you tell me?" Dean sounded honestly dumbfounded.

"I checked it in the morning and it looked just like this. What was I supposed to tell you, that the boogeyman was in the closet?" Sam was trying to be indignant. He had felt indignant at some point. Now he just felt like an idiot.

Dean gave his little brother an incredulous look and uncocked his gun. "I don't know a damn thing about a boogeyman, but there are a lotta monsters out there that I don't know enough about yet. It's bad enough that you haven't slept in days." Dean took a deep breath. "Sammy, you know what this means..."

Sam shook his head. Oh, this isn't how it was supposed to go down. Not at all.

"Look, Dean. Please. Can we just…never talk about this again? Please, Dean." Sam's eyes were plaintive. "It's just my imagination. I'll take care of it by myself. Please, Dean, not Dad..."

Dean's shoulders dropped and he uncurled from his defensive half crouch, gun at his side. He opened his mouth to say something, but just then the front door rattled with keys and John Winchester was back with the mother of all the shittiest timings in the world.

_Fuck. Oh just…just fuck._

_(to be continued...)_


	7. "How Many More Times"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John Winchester leaves no choices for his boys, and shit gets real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks a million times to my co-conspirator and all-around SPN cheerleader Agelade for sustaining me in this. And if you guys haven't checked her out yet, she's writing this pretty sweet Season 9 over there. Definitely worth a gander.
> 
> -Caladrius

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

**Chapter 7: "How Many More Times"**

**Then:**

_Dean's shoulders dropped and he uncurled from his defensive half crouch, gun at his side. He opened his mouth to say something, but just then the front door rattled with keys and John Winchester was back with the mother of all the shittiest timings in the world._

_Fuck. Oh just…just fuck._

**Now:**

If the combined acceleration of the two boys' hearts could have been measured on the Richter scale, then half of California would have fallen into the ocean at that point. Dean went ramrod straight and Sam froze. His heart pounded in the back of his throat like a choking, hot, pulsing thing.

John stood at the doorway for a second, and Sam was absolutely certain that he could, like a dog, smell the fear in the room. Calmly he shut the door behind him and pocketed his keys. Their father didn't look like he had slept in a couple of days, but then, he  _always_ looked like he hadn't slept in a couple of days.

"Son." This was to Dean.

"Yes, sir?"

"Why do you have a gun in your hand?"

He might have been inquiring about the time. Had anyone else been in the room, they would have just considered it the most casual of conversation starters.

Dean hesitated. It wasn't good to hesitate when John Winchester asked you a direct question, and the silence was filled with Sam's mental yells.  _Don't tell him. Please don't tell him. For God's sake, just lie, Dean. You lie so well to everyone else. Please don't...please!_

When Dean turned to look at him, Sam thought maybe it was possible that such things as psychic powers existed. Maybe there was something to the bond of brothers after all. With every tiny little ounce of willpower his expression begged him.

"Son?"

The second Dean looked down at the floor Sam knew.

"Sir, I was checking something out."

_Damn you, Dean._

"And that something was the closet?"

"Yes, sir. I thought...there might be something in it. Something supernatural."

_Too little too late._

"You thought this because?"

Dean swallowed, and it really seemed that for a second he tried to fight it. But no, when it came to Dad, that was all there was to it. Can't just, for this  _one_  time, deflect it away. He could have said that he was simply cleaning his gun. He could have said...a million things. Dean could get away with anything with anyone else.

When Dean glanced back to him, almost apologetic, Sam made sure that his expression was one hundred ways of saying, "you fucking traitor," and by the resigned look in his brother's eyes, he knew it had been communicated. And that was it then. Dean took a deep breath.

"Sam said something has been watching him for three nights from the closet. He hasn't been sleeping, so I was just checking it out."

At this, John Winchester looked up at the closet, but his thoughts were inscrutable. As usual. He walked across the room, around the beds, and Dean made way for his father as he approached to inspect the opening. Sam didn't back away from the door. He stared up at the imposing wall as if by doing so he could will himself to be brave; this man terrified and confused him and made him...irrationally angry. John looked down at Sam, and Sam held his ground. Stubbornly.

"Is this true, son?"

Sam pursed his lips together. Pleading the 5th. Daring wild horses to drag it from him. But John simply waited, and Sam was losing his nerve. Why did every conversation with his father have to feel like a Mexican standoff? Why had he  _made_  it that way?

"Answer the question, Sam."

John's voice had a quiet, compelling quality. A quality that made his youngest son want to throw his fists against his chest and just beat at him and beat at him until he stopped all of this. And it was unfair to hate Dean for giving in to it; their father was  _impossible_. At least now. At least while he was nine and couldn't drive or get a job, or find shelter on his own. As long as this dark looming mountain of a man held his brother captive too.

"Yes..."

Too mumbled.

"What was that?"

"I said, yes. Sir." The little soldier. Yes, they were all just being prepped for the front lines of John Winchester's private 'Nam.

John's face became a hard, unreadable line. As soon as he stepped away Sam could breathe again. That was, until his father went to the bedside stand and opened it. He came back with a small 9 millimeter, a weapon that Sam had some marginal familiarity with...and hated. Hated the way it felt, the way it looked, the reality of what it could do. It wasn't as deadly as his brother's .45, but it could kill, and that was enough. John held it towards his youngest son, butt first. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam thought he saw Dean balk.

He couldn't make himself touch it.

"What...what am I supposed to do with that?" Sam asked as flippantly as he could, but he already knew the answer. Moreover, when he looked up at his father, he knew that John knew that Sam knew that he knew the answer. And that was worse.

"You've seen the boogeyman, son. This is not a joke; it's as real as you or me. You've seen it, which means you are a target, and that means unless something changes its mind, or it's dead, it will come after you. It's fast and has mobility and agility on its side, but worse, it knows how to look inside you. But keep calm and keep steady because it has a weakness, and its susceptible to conventional weapons at the right time. You'll know when. Take the gun-you've fired it before. Keep it under the blanket. When you see it tonight you have to face it down first. Aim for the eyes. Don't look away."

Sam shook his head. He shook it and shook it. He felt light and airy and woozy.

"Dad, Sam hasn't slept for three nights..."

" _Stand down, Dean._ "

Both brothers jumped, and Sam thought he might pass out right there. John's voice had only raised two decibels but it felt as if the roof was about to collapse and bury him and his brother.

Oh fuck, no.

"Sam, take the gun. This creature is tiring you out, son, and it thinks it has you completely cornered. But you're strong, you've got good instincts, and you'll know when to pull the trigger." John pushed the gun closer.

Fuck you and your  _instincts_...hell no. Not like this. There was just no way. Couldn't the unspeakable horrors of the night be his imagination? Couldn't his father have said that everything would be okay? That they would deal with this with some warm milk and a bedtime story? That something wasn't going to "come after" him? That he was just afraid of the dark and that was all?

No. Because that was someone else's life. He was a Winchester, and Winchester's hunt because the fucking boogeyman was  _real_.  _Welcome to the family, Sam. Aren't you happy? Aren't you proud?_

Sam was so  _tired_ and now he felt sick to his stomach. From his periphery, Dean stood up straight and stepped to Sam's side cautiously, as if their father was a dangerous viper.

"Dad, seriously, I can handle this. I'll shoot the sonofabitch mys-"

"No, Dean. It won't work that way. It can't be you."

"But...but...Dad."

This amount of persistence against their father's commandments was unheard of for Dean. Had Sam not been ready to throw up, he might have been impressed. Once again, his older brother was there to take his burden. Sam struggled inwardly with two voices-one that rejected the idea that he had to be babied through everything, and a second that reminded him that the things his father and brother killed were killers themselves. Sam didn't want to die, and Dean was...Dean was  _good_  at this. He'd take care of it, do the dirty work, and then Sam wouldn't have to worry anymore.

But their father made the decision for him.

"Dean, I forbid you to interfere. Sam has to do it. Trust me when I say this-it rests on Sam. Take the gun, son." John's face hadn't changed, but there was an undercurrent to his tone that said his sons were walking the thinnest, finest line imaginable over a deep morass of violence. One step. Just one step...

_If I take that gun, then I'll be a killer too._

"Dad...I can't." Sam's palms were sweaty. He felt sweaty. He feared that morass. He wanted to run...run outside. Go. But where was he going to go? The gun and his father both blocked his exit.

"You can, and now you have to. It'll prey on your fears until you end it or it ends you. It's time, Sam. Take the gun. Follow my instructions. Once it's over, it will be over."

_No, Dad, once it's over, it will have just begun..._

"Sammy, don't worry. I won't..."

But Dean didn't get to finish his sentence. John turned and pushed him. It looked like a little shove, but Dean practically flew six feet onto Sam's cot. The action rolled him over and landed him on the other side like he had been a rag doll. The power of it, the sound of it, the reality of it brought Sam awake and turned his fear and hesitation into a slow-boiling anger.

"I said I forbid it, Dean. Is something wrong with your hearing?" The question was calm. No different from the tone of the first question he had asked that night.

"No...sir..." Dean's voice came from the floor. Defeated. Despite the fact that he couldn't have been too hurt, landing onto the cot, the rage in Sam's chest was beating down doors and preparing to storm the castle of his consciousness. A cold, tranquil fury seized him and he quickly took the gun from his father's hand.

"Keep it under the covers and aim for its eye. I got it." Sam checked it. It was loaded. He fingered the safety. For one almost overwhelming moment, he wondered what would happen if he put the gun to John's chest. There was a whole model of scenarios in his mind for that one, too, and all of them ended in horrific ways. Almost as horrific as desperately wanting his father's approval and never getting it.

* * *

Heavy silence reigned for the two hours before John left again, unless one counted the TV, and even after his father's final instructions, and warnings, the silence continued. The TV continued. Sam felt a wave of industry sweep over him despite the heaviness of his lids. Because going to bed meant going to bed with a gun tonight. It meant staring down an actual boogeyman and putting a bullet into its shiny little eye...

He sat down at the table and slowly, painfully, pulled the history book forward. Behind him he could feel Dean's eyes on his back, but Dean was in a nebulous place with Sam at the moment, again, and Sam had no strength to figure anything out. Better to immerse himself in Reconstructionist South, in the angst of a people who were all completely dead...except the ones who weren't. Not even a 4th grade history text was safe from doubt and suspicion anymore.

Sam gripped his pencil. He stared at a sentence he wasn't reading. His thoughts had two things tumbling end over end: the gun now under  _his_  pillow, and the image of Dean hurtling across his cot. And, of course, his father's voice telling him, "it's time."

_It's time..._

* * *

Sam shook his head a little. That was a close call. He had nearly fallen asleep. Nearly. Something must have jolted him. He still smelled like cheap motel soap from a joyless shower he couldn't remember, and  _it_ was in his hand. The gun. Every cold, hated curve of it burned brands into his fingers. Sam rejected it, he hated it, because of what it stood for. And what did it stand for? The reality of monsters? The death of his mother? Obedience?

Murder. Murder so that he could live, but still murder.

Sam's hand didn't shake. He was tired and the fear was no longer capable of throttling his nerves. It lay there inside, present and accounted for, but useless and fat and almost apathetic. Fear was slowly trying to separate Sam from himself for a simple reason: the real Sam did not want to do this...

_click_

The closet door.

Sam instinctively gripped the butt of the gun. It was close range-almost point blank, if one wanted to do the distance and the math. A five-year-old could make this shot...

And then the eye appeared.

It appeared, but it was...somehow different this time. For one thing, it wasn't shining-it was glowing. Glowing yellow.

"Look who I see there. Is it Sam? Sammy?"

Sam blinked but his own eyes went wide. That voice...he didn't know that voice. But...something remembered that voice.

The yellow eye stared at him and he could almost sense a smile behind it.

"Are you going to shoot me now? Shoot me before you know everything, Sammy?"

_Who are you?_

He hadn't said it out loud, but the words seemed to reverberate in the air anyway.

"Do you want to find out? Come on, Sam. Sammy. Samuel. Take a peek inside here. Don't worry, it's not like that book you read in 3rd grade. We don't all float down here, but it's interesting. It's not quite ready for you, but I'll give you a sneak peek. If you want."

That yellow eye was laughing at him. It was ten times more disturbing now that there was a voice; it was ten times worse because it sounded inviting in the way that leaping out of a plane with a hastily packed parachute was inviting to the reckless. To the directionless. After all, when leaping out of a plane there was really only one direction in which to go. Ever.

Down.

"She's here with me, you know. All cooked. Well-done. Your mother..."

_Bang!_

No more talking. Shutting up now, you fucking yellow freak. Sam shook, his hand shook, the smoking muzzle, the blackened cover shook. Holy shit. Holy fuck. What the hell...

"Sam. Did you miss?"

In the darkness, Sam's eyes went round and the whites around his irises hurt. There was...no way. No way he missed. It was as if the word "mother" had placed a target and drawn the bullet right out of his gun. He had never wanted to shoot anything else so much in his entire life. It was point blank. There was no way...

The eye was gone but the voice was not. The muffled, amused tones were building that cold, dormant rage.

"What do we have behind door number one, Sammy? Does it make you mad? Mad that I remember more than you do..."

Sam flung the covers off. That door was no longer a closet. Was that what he thought it had been? It wasn't a closet at all. His hand trembled and his eyes were fixed on that opening. That tiny opening. Something was behind that door, flickering. Sweat was cold on his skin-he could feel the white t-shirt clinging to him, scratchy against his throat. His throat was so dry. The carpet under his toes was like sandpaper as he took a tentative step, and then another. As if in a dream he remembered his father's voice.

_It's time..._

He held the gun up, steadied it with his other hand, his soul focusing every sense onto that opening, the dancing yellow and golds. Sam held his breath. One hand reluctantly left the ironically comforting presence of the gun to reach for the door handle.

_Hot fingers. Burning skin. Burning to the bone._

Sam couldn't scream. The horror had lodged into his throat, preventing anything, even a gasp, as the door shot open and the hand, flaming, latched onto his wrist. It was unbelievable in every way except that it  _hurt_. If nothing else, that pain, that searing, skin-crisping pain, and the feeling of being inexorably pulled towards the door made Sam abandon any hope. He brought up the gun. He shot at the arm. The kickback was the kickback of a 9 millimeter, not so much, but he felt it in the muscles of his hand, the tendons in his arm. He shot it empty. Sam's heels burned with the friction as he slid closer.

_Oh shit. I'm going to die!_

The useless weapon fell to the floor and was gone. Sam pulled at his own arm, his eyes fixed on that burning yellow and orange orb that didn't care. Didn't care that he he didn't want to know what was behind that door. Didn't care that he didn't want to die.

Dean.

Sam's foot hit the door jam. He braced it that for all he was worth.

_Dean!_

A wind rushing from the opening, as small as it was, was like the gate over a furnace from hell. He didn't want to go there. He didn't want to know!

And then the fire became an icy trail from his forehead down his spine. Cold _._

_This is you, Sam. It's all here. Thank you for showing me..._

"Dean!"

He screamed it at the top of his lungs...but nothing came out.

The ice was shiny. Like an eye. He was encased in it.

_I've got you, Sam. You will come to me. So many fears, but this one is the most beautiful..._

"Sam!"

Sam gasped. His head shot up from the page of his history book. Every muscle in his body ached. What the hell. Where the fuck?

"Hey, Sammy? Sam!"

Sam felt his entire upper body move, being shaken from behind, no, the shoulder. For seconds he was frozen solid. So cold. He was actively rejecting reality.

_He would crawl away from reality and sit here where he could do nothing and nothing could hurt him and nothing would happen to him. He could hide for as long as he wanted because he could not be found and could not be seen..._

"Oh shit. Sammy!"

His chair moved, and a flower of a sting on his left cheek, the jerking reaction, somehow connected to his chest and his lungs started to work again. Another breath. And another.

"That's good. Okay, fuck. Jesus. Breathe, Sammy."

Dean began to swear a kind of blue streak then. It wasn't artful, but it satisfied some need. Yes, a river of superfluous vitriol accompanied by a hand on his forehead. Sam looked straight ahead, and then his eyes focused on his brother. His head hurt. His brain hurt. Why did it feel like his  _soul_  hurt?

"Did you just slap me?" Sam asked it as if he had done nothing to precipitate it. Had he?

_Something just happened. There was a voice. And fire and cold._

Dean opened his mouth, stuck like that for a second, and then that rare expression of total vulnerability on his face disappeared.

"Yeah, you little bitch. D'you want me to do it again?"

Sam blinked. Dean blinked. He shook his head slightly and sat back. What had that voice said?  _You'll...come to me?_

What voice?

"Just admit it. History is a fucking snorefest. You can't even defend it now. Did you get any drool on that book?" Dean was talking again and being an ass, but Sam was shaken in ways he couldn't quite recall and Dean's voice was familiar. It filled the empty spaces for the moment, redirected the panic. Everything was right where it was. Without even really realizing what he was doing, Sam lifted his arm. He gazed at it. But it was his arm, nothing more. He touched his forehead but it was hot, not cold.

"Hey, man..." Dean was staring at him, he had his mouth open to say more and then stopped. "Are you hungry? Because I'm starving."

Sam pursed his lips and took a breath.

"Yeah, actually."

But the bang of a pot and clink of silverware had already begun. Sam picked up his pencil, trying to make his brain realign into something that wanted to finish this homework.

"Hey."

"Hn."

"Did you have a nightmare?"

Dean's tone was conversational, but it had an edge.

"Um. I don't...remember. Why? Did I say something?"

There was a pause. It might have been too long, or it might have been Dean just trying to read directions on a box of mac and cheese. Reconstruction. Carpetbaggers. Amendments to the Constitution.

"No, not really."

_Man, I fell asleep on my history book. Lame, Sam. Way to be lame. I'll never live this down..._

But Dean said nothing else, and Sam was finished with the answer to question four by the time a bowl was filled with steaming orange pasta. Sam's eyes creased at it, the completely unnatural color, the steam, like glowing orange and smoke...

But it was only mac and cheese.

"Congratulations, this doesn't suck." He said finally after the third mouthful.

"Too bad you do."

"That was an idiot's comeback, Dean."

"I know you are but what am I?"

"An idiot."

"Only idiots use the same insult twice in a row, idiot."

"Well then, look who's talking."

"Eat your pasta, bitch."

"Jerk."

"I know you are, but what I am I?"

Dean liked to talk, yeah. But it filled the empty spaces, and everything was where it should be. At least for the moment.

* * *

**March 18, 2007**

**Sam 23-years-old**

**Dean 27-years-old**

" _Dean, I want you take care of your little brother, okay? Watch him. Protect him. But, son, if you can't save him, if he becomes one of them, then...it has to be you. When the time comes, you'll know it's too late, and then the only way to save him is to kill Sam. Remember that, son. Remember it."_

_Dad, don't go! I can't do this!_

" _Dean, I've tried running before. I mean, I ran all the way to California and look what happened. You can't run from this, and you can't protect me..."_

_Sammy...you used to have faith in me..._

Dean came out of his sleep full tilt. He turned his head quickly, and when he didn't see Sam in the other bed he was up and grabbing his nickel-plated .45 from under his pillow, pulling his jacket from the bed post, before Sam's voice stopped him.

"Dean?"

Sam was at the motel table, computer open, newspapers in front of him, a concerned and worn Sammy expression tilting his features.

_Oh, thank God._

Still here. Still here despite...despite learning the horrible truth about Dad's last words after that Croatoan freakiness. Despite once running away to Indiana to follow his "Alice in Wonderhell" breadcrumb trail of other Yellow-touched "special" kids. Despite the disappearance, under questionable circumstances, of the nice little psychic girl who saved his brother's life when Gordon and his fucking anti-hero crusade crossed his path.

And it was the complete middle of the night.

Dean cleared his throat.

"Did you...did you have a nightmare?" Sam asked gently.

"Hm? No, I was just...gonna take a leak." Dean coughed.

"With your  _gun?"_

"Hey man, have you seen the cockroaches in Illinois motels? They are hella huge. Those things could survive a nuclear war but not this baby." Dean shook the gun in the air a little with a grin and then slid it back under his pillow.

"...Rrright."

Dean stood up. Stretched. Whatever time it was, he was up now. "What are you doing? Did  _you_  have a nightmare?"

Sam took a deep breath, ran a hand over half his face, and then shook his head. His eyes traveled back to the computer monitor. "No. Tried to sleep and then gave it up."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Too hesitant.

"What are you thinking, Sammy?" Dean crossed to the table.

Sam covered something small on the table with his palm, but not before Dean saw it. Saw it clearly.

He remembered another night Sam had clutched that thing, stunned, his heart destroyed. He remembered closing Sam's numb hand over it.   _Why, Sammy. Of all things, why keep that thing? After what she did to you..._

His brother was a masochist. That's all there was to it. At least, he hoped that was all there was to it. "Sam..."

One look and Dean knew Sam knew he had seen it.

"It's happening again, Dean."

"Sam, we don't know exactly what happened to Ava, okay? Don't...don't go all Donnie Darko on me now."

Sam gave him a weird look, "Dean, this...isn't really anything like Donnie Darko."

Dean shrugged, "The hell if I know. That fucking rabbit costume actually did give me nightmares, and I had  _no_ idea what was going on at any point in that movie..."

Sam raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "Nevermind. More appropriate reference than I thought."

"Shut it." Dean looked over Sam's shoulder at the 20 tabs Sam was running simultaneously. Moving his eyes only, he visually checked Sam's hand. It was still hanging onto that red and black hair tie.

"Please, don't ask me why," Sam said in answer to the look he couldn't have possibly seen from his vantage...

Dean froze. How did he know he was...? Fuck, Sam  _was_ psychic but...

Sam pointed at Dean's clear reflection in the monitor.

Oh. Duh.

"I don't just  _know_ everything, Dean. If I did, I wouldn't be up at 4am searching the grid."

His older brother relaxed slightly, put his hand on his shoulder and squeezed it.

"Sam...it's all doing a 'Chariots of Fire' race around your head. You've got too much goin' on. Can't you at least let...let something go? You know. Let  _this thing_  be?"

Sam shook his head. "Everything I do goes back to it. It  _all_  goes back to it. The hesitation, the mistakes...whatever is coming, whatever...Dad...was thinking, he knew it too. Dean!" Sam twisted suddenly in his seat as Dean's hand fell away and his brother pivoted on his heel in frustration.

"Sam, your 'hesitation'  _saved_  people, okay? Saved that guy at Cedar Lake. Hell, you saved him from  _me_. He wasn't infected, remember?" Dean turned back to him, "And...and you didn't gank Gordan when you had the chance, even though you knew he was tryin' to kill you in cold blood."

Sam shook his head, "He was trying to stop me from something, Dean. Gordan was a homicidal sociopath, but who knows where I'm headed? You can't rule on that one yet."

Dean threw his hands into the air. "Look, you have to stop equating the ability to  _kill_  things with killing the boogeyman...or you are goin' to turn into what you're trying  _not_ to become, and hell if I know what Dad was doin' back then."

"He was trying to make me smarter. Ready. I don't know..."

"Oh, you say that now like it all magically makes sense. Did you have another green-smelling dream?"

"Dean," Sam clenched the hair tie and his face crumbled, but only for a second. For an instant. "What Dad said to you. He based it on the me he knew. The things he knew. And if I just wander down the path he saw, then you'll have do it. You will pull the trigger like he told you to. That's what he trained  _you_  to do. You'll do it."

Dean's eyes narrowed dangerously, because, God, to imagine he had been trained to kill his only little brother after being told so many times to protect him, that such a thing could have been Dad's plan  _all along_... Dean couldn't even  _touch_ that let alone  _accept_ it as apparently Sam had.

"No, Sam, stop..."

"You  _will_..." And then quieter, "I'd want you to...if I became that person. If I couldn't...If I couldn't break this...this goddamn  _chain_  from then. If I could just face that fear I couldn't face before. If I could be stronger, calmer...prepared." He looked up at Dean meaningfully. Pleadingly. "It doesn't mean I'm going to become a killer if I can find it, retrace my steps, confront it.  _Deal_  with it the way I should have back then, the way I  _knew_  I should have. Don't you see, Dean? The fear I had when I was nine...it's not gone. Dad wanted me to face it, to get over it. I should have. He'd never have needed to say that thing to you if I had. He'd never have burdened you with it."

"Sam, Dad was a coward."

Sam shook his head. "You don't believe that."

"Maybe I do now. Maybe I do. The point is that going all the way back there, to the past...I mean, what is it, Sam? What the hell are you still so afraid of?"

Sam and Dean's eyes met.

The pain in the room was so close to the surface. Silence crashed through the tiny barrier and Dean realized that, after all this time, after bringing this kid up and changing his diapers and watching him obsessively almost every day of his life until he was 19...he just didn't know his brother well enough. And that was damn scary.

"Dean, believe me or not if you want, but...something is leading me back to it. My dreams, little things, all of it. I told you I wasn't going to hide it and I'm not. When I know what I need to do, I'm going to do it. I have to move past it. I have to move us  _all_  past it, you included."

"I don't need my little brother to-"

"Dean. I've never felt more certain about anything in my entire life. The whole thing with Yellow Eyes, with Dad, with the other psychics...I've got nothing. It's all grey and fuzzy and ominous. But this one thing...this  _one_  fucking monster that's still out there...that thing is mine, Dean. You didn't do anything wrong when you were 14. Nothing. You have to let me accept this, all of it."

Dean slumped onto his bed. So fucking stubborn. Just like Dad...

_Sammy..._

"Did you have another dream about Dad?" It was quiet.

Sam took a breath. "The same one. But clearer. A little."

"Still smells like green?"

"Y-yeah, and the silver box is in Dad's hand, but now they are surrounded by a hundred or more other silver boxes. And...and he looks right at me...looks me right in the eye..." Sam pauses, "...and he says, 'it's coming back.'"

A chill ran down Dean's spine.

"That's it?"

Sam nods.

"And...and when were you going to tell me this, Mr. I'm Not Hiding Anything?"

His little brother shrugged, "When you were happily listening to Led Zeppelin?" His eyes looked up at Dean hopefully, apologetically...haunted.

"Zeppelin? Really," Dean answered blandly.

"Maybe Mettalica, but not during the Black album."

Dean nodded, "You better not fucking interrupt the Black album with your petty psychic dreaming crap."

Sam smiled and a line in his forehead relaxed. "Absolutely not. Some things are sacred."

"You bet your ass they are." Dean stood up, stretched, and took a deep breath.

"Well, this has been fun and adorable and far too revealing, and now I'm going to get black coffee to cleanse myself. You want your caramel mocha chocowhipped espresso yummycup usual?" Dean picked up his coat and gun again. He clinked the keys in his pocket.

"Yeah, actually. Double on the chocowhipping, please. Running on a sugar low."

_God. What a girl._

"You got it, Samantha."

Sam snorted and gave Dean the finger...which meant they were all good.

Dean couldn't help squeezing Sam's shoulder one last time before heading out the door and locking it behind him. He didn't think overly much about his last view of Sam through the motel window, his hand open, the hair tie staring him full in the face, and Sam's bowed head. He pushed the image away because, what the hell, Sammy.  _Putting yourself on an island is going to kill you. Kill us both. And I'm the one always afraid of it, of losing you._ I'm  _the coward, not Dad. Not you._

_(to be continued...)_


	8. "For Whom the Bell Tolls"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hated and feared night has arrived. Sam's not totally sure he can do this unless....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A million bazillion thanks to Agelade. She tries to keep me on the straight and narrow for she has the superior skill, but she likes this story somehow anyway...and now her Lustraverse season 9AU and this story are practically married to each other... :D
> 
> If you are reading this and haven't started reading that....well, make a note in your datebook to do so.

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

**Ch 8: "For Whom the Bell Tolls"**

**May 1, 1993**

**Sam 9**

**Dean 14**

At nine o'clock that night, Sam learned an important lesson about human psychology: it's easier and nicer to exist in a world of denial. It's not actually comforting to live in denial, but it provides the  _illusion_  of comfort and sometimes it's much preferable to reality. Denial for Sam consisted of every possible way to resist the inevitable passage of time that would take him from a moment in the shower through to the moment when he would have to pull the trigger on a monster. (Surprisingly, Dean didn't give him any crap for completely hogging the shower, though he did check on him twice to make sure he wasn't "drowning in snores.")

The water on Sam's chest was hot and the sound was comforting. It was a universe of "this can all wait, right? Sure it can." But eventually hot water runs out and time marches on. Nevertheless, and much to his embarrassment, his older brother had to bodily pull him out of it and dump two towels over him, frowning at his chattering teeth.

"Really, Sam? Are you a retard? That water has been cold for five minutes. Do you want to die of hypothermia?"

Of course Dean knew about hypothermia. Dean existed in reality. Sam didn't like to admit any shortcomings between them despite their age, but it was true that he had been the one protected, sitting in motel rooms moping while Dean was out experiencing hypothermia in the real world. Or maybe he could summon up some hot anger about all of that to stop his annoying jaw.

_Encased in ice..._

"Y-y...yeah. Maybe I do want to die of hypothermia," he said petulantly.

The anger didn't come, but the heat from Dean's hand across his face did warm him up a little. It wasn't a hard slap, and the expression his brother wore as Sam looked up to retort flooded him with guilt.

"Jesus, Sammy. Don't say melodramatic shit like that. You're nine."

As if age had something to do with dying, with denial, with reality.

The reality was that his father had sentenced him to be the death of a boogeyman. It was complete fiction in someone else's world. Only for the Winchesters could it possibly be real. His father had said that he was a target, that it would keep stalking him until he shot it. But stalking him to what end? What did it actually  _want_?

"Stop hitting me, Dean. And, for the record, I'm almost 10." It was a delayed reaction to the slap which, honestly, he had probably needed. Sam wrestled himself out of his terror and provided a fair facsimile of nonchalance as he pushed his brother off of trying to dry his hair for him and took control of his personal hygiene.

Dean put his hands in the air as if being robbed at gunpoint. "Stop making me, and I will." And despite how that sounded completely wrong, abusive even, Dean had no apologies and Sam expected none. They were their father's sons, after all; the ends justified the means. Dean left with a stern big-brother admonition to "be out in five, or else," and exited. Sam took all of the four minutes and fifty-nine seconds to breathe in the vaguely clean scent of the stark white towels before he obediently left the bathroom. Dean's authority notwithstanding, there was no more sense in delaying the inevitable.

* * *

"I don't need you to tuck me in."

Dean lifted the 9 millimeter to his eyes. He checked it. He checked it thoroughly.

"It's a good gun, Sammy. It's not going to jam on you."

Sam was quiet as he pulled up the cover. He stared at his brother. Forbidden to interfere. Forbidden by John "Almighty" Winchester, hunter god extraordinaire.

When Dean's eye met his, he actually saw the wall crumble. That was the scariest part.

"Sammy, you're gonna be okay. Dad wouldn't have said for you to do it unless he thought, no he  _knew_ , you could, all right? Look," he aimed at the closet door. "It's the closest shot in the universe. I've seen you practice; you're good."

Sam calmly reached up. He tugged on Dean's shirt tail and let his hand hang there. The weight was small, but he hoped it conveyed...something. His brother wasn't a complete douchebag. He forgave him for spilling the beans to Dad before because he was so clearly paying for it now; at the moment, it was hard to decide which of them was more terrified.

"I got this, Dean. Give me the gun."

Dean stared at his brother's hand. "I'm just sayin'..."

"I know what you're saying. Just give me the gun. If I kill this thing maybe Dad will take us out for cheeseburgers tomorrow or something." Because he knew that was Dean's comfort food, not his own. And Dean knew he knew. It was an olive branch. A truce.  _We're in this shitty reality together._

Fourteen-year-olds going through puberty develop an Adam's Apple. That's what Sam saw move. Up, then down. Swallowing. Dean took Sam's hand from his shirttail and slapped the gun into it with purpose. He bent down so he could meet his little brother's gaze on his level. Inadvertently, Sam could see how wet his eyes were.

"You fire when you're ready. You take the shot. Don't wait another night, Sammy."

_Because you won't make it another night._

It was like Sam actually heard the words from Dean's head. Something really deep was shaken by the worry in his brother's voice. When Sam started to trace it to its source, he realized why: It was Dean, not his father, who had always been the most reliable caretaker, even when he hadn't actually  _been_ reliable. To sense danger from a place of safety was worse than any dire scenario his father could have painted for him. Unconsciously his left hand tightened around a small piece of plastic in his hand. The red and black ladybug hair tie he had surreptitiously snagged from his rucksack was hot but real. Just in case. Just, maybe, for luck so that he could survive this.

 _Keep your mouth shut, Sam_ , he told himself. He said nothing more. If he kept talking, Dean was going to keep talking. Not that Dean needed to hear a word from Sam's mouth to keep talking. The fact was, there was nothing else to say. Sam nodded. An earnest nod. An "I'm actually paying attention to you" nod. For what seemed like an eternity, there was a silence as deep, vast, and dark as a quarry pool. Ambient light from a venetian blind somewhere created ripples on his brother's face as he slowly stood up, disappeared from Sam's view, and created hollow sushing sounds as he slid into his own bed.

And that was it then. The trap was primed.

Who was Sam kidding? He wasn't the trap, he was the bait. This wasn't his first mission, it was his last. Disappointing, really. He had hoped that reassuring his brother would have at least provided himself with a few minutes of confidence. Yes, he wanted to be able to show he was self-sufficient, that he was worthy of someone's faith...but not like this. He didn't want to kill, and he didn't want to die. What a sorry excuse for a kid  _he_  was.

And of course there was the niggling fact that a boogeyman had targeted him and wasn't going to stop...

There was an imprint of edges from the little hair tie in one hand. He was holding onto it so hard that it hurt. Was Amber laying in bed thinking about her father who had gone on a hunting trip and never come back? Who had missed several birthdays and would probably miss the rest?

 _And where is_ my  _Dad?_

_Oh, that's right, he's left me here with a monster..._

Sam's fingers on the gun were slick, sweaty, which only increased his anxiety. When the time came, could he even get a shot off? At best he'd only have one chance-at this distance, he was just as easy prey as the creature. Nine million scenarios assaulted Sam's imagination with all of the force of a ten-story drop. In most of them he was killed in some wonderfully horrible way, and in others he succeeded and earned the right to be a monster killer. Of course, several scenarios just had him failing in different ways and having to face his father in the morning for it.

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you still awake?"

_Dean._

"Duh."

A pause.

"...Do you see it yet?"

Sam licked his lips. "No. Door's still closed."

"Ah. Okay. How're you doin'?"

"Fantastic."

There was no response. Sam shifted slightly, trying to uncramp his shoulder which was rapidly going numb. It appeared to be caused by the almost deathlike grip on the 9 millimeter he didn't even know he had been applying. A strange sort of cold desperation sank in. He was tired, so, so tired. And now he was completely psyching himself out.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"...When you have a...job to do, when Dad takes you out, what do you think about? You know, to keep your mind off it?"

"Honestly?"

"Yeah."

Dean's voice floated up from the darkness. "I don't think about anything. I don't think about it. Not even later if I can help it."

Sam blinked. Actually, that made a lot of sense. And not just as advice, but it explained more about how his brother operated in three sentences than Sam had managed to figure out in nine and a half years. Single-minded determination. One track mind? Yes. That was because Dean set himself on a path and let the autopilot take over. How many steps to the next obstacle? How hard was the brick wall? Walk it out, bash yourself through it, and then never look back.

Well, shit. As enlightening and almost endearing as it all was, there remained one glaring problem.

"I...don't think I can do that." He admitted quietly. "Not ever."

Silence.

Sam expected some kind of retort from his brother, something Dean would have found witty but would be, in all actuality, pathetic. But there was nothing. He winced. Dean was right, he wasn't going to make it another night...

"Fuck this."

Sam turned his head slightly, hearing sounds of movement behind him but too stiff to turn his head enough to see. But he didn't have to. The clicking of metal on metal, the creak of a motel bed unloading, and Dean's presence in front of him all came together.

"Scoot over."

Sam lay in the cot and blinked at him.

"What?"

"I said, scoot over." He leaned down and physically pushed at his little brother in the chest. "And do me a favor and don't shoot me. In fact, give me that thing." Sam felt his brother's hand on the gun and his fingers resisted.

"Dean, what the hell are you doing? Go back to bed."

"Gimme the gun, Sammy. I don't  _think_  you'd accidentally shoot me in the back. Well, maybe I do.  _Jesus_." The reason for the last exclamation was mostly inexplicable, except that it was breathed out right about the moment that Dean managed to pry Sam's sweaty, clamped fingers from the weapon. Sam instinctively clutched his hands to his chest to soothe them, and then was handily moved out of the way. Christ. When did Dean get so strong? In thirty seconds more his brother had climbed onto the cot and lay facing the closet door with his .45.

"Dean, seriously, there's not enough room for both of us on this thing."

Did he sound relieved? He prayed he didn't sound relieved. He wanted to be angry, indignant, that his brother was, once again, taking his burden onto himself. He  _was_  indignant. Mostly.

"What're you talkin' about? You're a shrimp. There's nine feet of unused space here. Just close your eyes and sleep, Sammy."

Dean turned his head slightly over his shoulder when he addressed him. His profile was so clear despite the darkness.

"Are you kidding? You're gonna smother me if you shift three inches..."

"Shut your cake hole, Sammy. Who d'you think slept with you when you were 11 months old in every motel room, huh? And look, you're still breathing. As far as I'm concerned, you kept me up enough to owe me a little credit."

Oh. Right. That's right. Once upon a time, they had shared a bed. Until the day a four-year-old Sam insisted he was old enough to sleep by himself. But that had been different.

"Dean."

Sam's voice was serious.

His brother looked away. "Just sleep, Sammy."

A pause.

"Dean, he  _forbid_  it. Remember? Dad doesn't use words like 'forbid.' He just says 'don't' and we 'don't.'"

_You don't._

There was no movement, just a loaded stone wall between him and the closet door, between himself and nine million scenarios that all sucked.

"Dean, seriously. Dad will kill you."

Sam meant it figuratively, but John Winchester had a way of making his lessons so crystal clear a monkey could understand them. Which was why Sam's fear had begun to shift directions. He'd already seen his brother tumble over his cot once because of his problems. It wasn't something he wanted to see escalate. Ever. Despite it all, Dean's voice was steady.

"I know what he said. I know."

"Then what the hell are you doing?" Sam pressed it and Dean moved slightly, as if testing the bonds of an invisible rope wrapped around his arms.

"I want the target practice."

Man, that was lame.

"Dean..."

"Shut up, Sammy, and listen to me." His voice was clipped, hushed, as if John Winchester would be arriving any moment and he had only seconds to make himself clear. "I pushed you out of the way. You can think whatever you want. Hell, you can tell Dad whatever you want. The fact is, I decided this, and I'm gonna take that thing out that has been stalking my little brother for nights. For  _nights._  And I'm gonna make its ass sorry it ever decided to pick on a Winchester. And that's it, Sam. That's the end of the story." His face turned towards the closet. His shoulders were set, resolute.

Sam blinked.

He shut up.

What could he do? When your brother says the coolest thing ever, what are you supposed to say to follow it? This  _was_  his brother, right? Dean? Saying "piss off" to Dad's  _forbiddance_? Was he insane? Did he actually have a death wish? There was no way he was in this for the target practice, no matter what he said, because the truth was that Dean was 14-years-old and already didn't  _need_  target practice. In Sam's sleep-soaked brain, his brother's decision to stand against their father trumped it all. It trumped everything. More than standing up to a boogeyman, it was the bravest thing either of them could ever do. It was probably irrational, familial pride, yes, but Sam was mentally, physically, and emotionally worn out.

Sam slid forward and his forehead pressed against Dean's back. It was warm, but not too warm. It was comfortable. Far too comfortable, in fact, but it was beyond Sam's ability to fight.

Tomorrow. He'd reassert his manliness tomorrow. If he was alive, this would be his problem again. Tomorrow. When his eyes had rested. When he could actually think. Maybe when he could consider holding a gun on a closet door and not imagine nine million ways it could all go wrong. And as if he had been programmed for it, as soon as he decided to give over his burden (just for one night, seriously), his body felt leaden. Swirls of violet color bloomed behind his eyelids and sleep began to drag him down. But it would be okay. As long as Dean was here, he could close his eyes, allow his vigilance to relax. So cool, sometimes. Standing up to Dad. Dean could be so cool...

"Sammy?"

"Nnn."

Dean's voice relaxed. Maybe he could hear the sleep in Sam's voice. Or maybe he knew that there would be no more coherent conversation.

"I've got a sweet birthday present for you. Just wake up tomorrow, okay?"

Against his back, Sam smiled and nodded. He pressed closer and his hand unconsciously found the shirttail. Dean's T-shirted back was warm and it was banishing the cold, keeping the ice at bay, giving Sam strength and sapping his will to stay awake at the same time. It was too late to stop now anyway. It was okay, though. It was fine. Dean was okay. He'd keep that boogeyman at bay, no matter what. He'd follow through because that's what he did. He even had a present for him. He even remembered. That was nice, to be remembered. Sometimes Sam really loved this guy. For real.

"Go to sleep. You're delirious."

His last thought before the darkness wholly consumed him was,  _did I say something out loud?_

* * *

**May 2, 1993**

There were no dreams. At least, not that he remembered. It was the deepest, hardest sleep imaginable, but it was also the most restful sleep he had had in a long time. And this was all despite the fact that when he finally opened his eyes, there was an arm partially laying across his face and some terrible breath snoring at point blank range towards his nose.

"Ugh..." He recoiled from the hot breath instinctively, found an arm, and pushed at his brother's chest. "Holy crap, Dean, you're gonna kill me." Sam pulled at the right arm slouched over him, gun still attached to his grip. Wow. Okay,  _this_  wasn't safe. His brother's taller body was on the verge of total eclipse of his own, and he was completely and utterly sound asleep despite the sunlight streaming into the room from the window slats.

"Dean." He shook his shoulder. "I told you you were gonna smother me."

"Ung?" Dean woke up. Very ungraciously. He snorted and blinked as he got his bearings, finally focusing on the vaguely annoyed expression on his brother's face. "What are you talkin' about. You're fine." His brother partially lifted himself to pull his arms and legs back to a more compact position. Dean had fantastic bed hair. Really fantastic. One side of it slid straight up like a cliff over the ocean of his ear. His eyes were tired, but he grinned. Completion of a job well done or just an idiot? Maybe a little of both. "What did I tell you, huh? No problem."

Well, there was no way Dean could have shot something with a 45 in the middle of the night and Sam not hear it, so...

"Did you see it?" He asked hesitantly.

His brother shook his head in response. "I watched all night. No click. No door open. No shiny eyes." He lifted himself up for a second so that Sam could verify that the closet door was, in fact, still closed. That worried Sam because something felt...off about it.

Dean let himself fall back onto the cot. It jostled a bit under their combined weight. "When the sun came up I figured the show was over."

He fell asleep at dawn then? Maybe two and a half hours ago? Three?

"How'd you sleep, Sammy?" Dean had a look of perpetual self-satisfaction on his face.

Best not to stroke that ego too hard. He shrugged slightly. "Good. I was completely unconscious, I know that much. But, Dean...do you think it's over? Won't it come back? Dad said it had me targeted."

"Jesus, Sammy. You can't just be okay with it for two minutes?" Dean frowned.

Sam sighed. "No, I mean, I'm glad. I am, okay? Happy? Thanks. I'm just thinking ahead..."

"Yeah, well, we'll cross the bridge when we come to it. That's what we always do anyway. Christ, you're gonna have an ulcer before you have pubes."

Sam gave him a wilted look. The Look. "Seriously, Dean?" But his brother was laughing, and it was kind of hard to be gloom and doom when Dean was smiling so freely and he felt so rested. Maybe he was right. Maybe, just maybe, it would be okay.

"Look, you made it to your 10th birthday in spite of yourself," Dean pounced on Sam, put him in a headlock and rubbed the top of his his head rapidly while Sam, off guard, half-complained, half-snorted because Dean was an idiot but he was  _alive_. "Birthday noogie!" Dean announced superfluously, practically suffocating Sam in his armpit before Sam's knee found its way to his chest and pried him off.

Both of them fell back onto the cot laughing breathlessly. Man, life was good.

Dean kneeled up almost immediately. "Ready for your birthday present?"

Sam's expression betrayed his excitement even though he was trying to stay cool. It wasn't like presents were plentiful in their lives, and last night his brother had already given him the gift of sleep, of peace of mind, which was easily the best gift Dean had ever given him. It was hard to keep a straight face even though he said, "You know you aren't supposed to use Dad's money for this stuff."

"I didn't use his money. But it's still good. Like, 'outdid myself' good, and you better appreciate it." He warned.

"I promise no such thing, but give me the present anyway," Sam said, repurposing Dean's commandment of the night before. Sam cracked a smile-he couldn't help it. Dean was into this, into giving something to him. His body language was more of a gift receiver than a gift giver, which was rare when Dean was called upon to give something away.

Despite the buildup, Sam tried to keep his expectations low; it was probably a Pez dispenser from a gas station. Last year, that's what Dean had given him- a Batman Pez dispenser. Sam was actually able to keep it for six months before it ended up with Dean's stuff and that was that. Still, it had been his for a little while. Sam squeezed the early birthday present from Amber still in his fist. Ladybug hair ties and Pez dispensers. It was going to be a good birthday.

Dean half bounced, half slid off the cot. Had Dean been lifting weights? Bulking up? Was Sam really just noticing how 'grown up' his brother was looking every day? While Sam wrestled with the clearing of the fog that had surrounded his entire waking life for four four days, Dean went back to his bed, rummaged under it for several seconds (probably hid the gift behind car magazines-a place Sam would never have gone) and came up with a brown paper bag. The top had been folded down and taped around.

The grin on Dean's face was 100 percent pure pleasure, and Sam felt himself getting excited in spite of past Pez gifts. And really, he couldn't hold Dean to a standard since Sam's last gift to Dean had been a display of his burgeoning brother-taught five-finger-discount abilities with one of those girl magazines in a plastic bag. (Sam didn't like to consider himself a criminal, so he reconciled the theft with the fact that he wasn't keeping the loot for himself-he had just witnessed Dean staring at it for ten minutes at a rest stop, aware that the clerk was watching the teen-aged male with suspicion. Said clerk never suspected the nine-year-old brother, though. And when Sam presented it to Dean a few days later for his birthday, it was like he was the Second Coming or at least the greatest little brother in the history of the world. Dean spent most of his 14th birthday in the bathroom.)

"You can disregard the message on it now," Dean informed as he presented the paper-bound package and Sam took it. There was something written in black sharpie, and out of curiosity he had to read it.

_If you open this before May 2 I will really kill you._

"I already feel the love," Sam said wryly.

"Gotta take precautions for everything," Dean smiled and sat down next to him. "Well, stop staring at the bag. You aren't gonna cry about the lack of wrapping paper, are you?"

Sam smiled and shook his head. His thoughts unconsciously traveled to his history textbook where he had, the night before, stashed the piece of colorful homemade wrapping paper that had Amber's phone number. Hiding it in any kind of textbook was Sam's precaution for a snooping older brother, and that seemed to be working too.

Which reminded him-he had to figure out a way to get Dean out of the motel for a while so he could fulfill his promise of a birthday phone call.

Dean pushed Sam's shoulder.

"Are you awake? Come on."

Obediently Sam came back to the present. He rolled up the top of the paper bag and stuck his hand inside. It felt solid, wooden by the grain, but it had strange ridges in it. Sam prepared himself to be "surprised" by a handmade wooden stake, and mentally practiced a smile of feigned thanks for yet another gift that Dean really wanted for himself...

...But what emerged from the bag was definitely not a wooden stake. It was some kind of fully finished wooden box about 8 inches long and an inch and a half by an inch in a half. It was the top of the box that arrested Sam's attention-hand carved with a swirling, circular, almost vinelike design in relief. Sam knew his brother was good with a knife, but this was, hands down, the most impressive work he had ever seen. He'd almost been willing to believe it was somehow bought, not made, but for the name SAM WINCHESTER in a carved hand that Sam knew was Dean's (his older brother had the bad habit of liking to carve his name into everything that would take a sharp point).

"Dean..." Sam was beyond impressed.

"Look," Dean took the box from him and pushed one end. It slid open to reveal a nice, long, deep cavity. "Do you know what it is? It's a pen and pencil box. You know, for school or whatever."

Sam's jaw dropped. This was not a Pez dispenser.

"Yeah, do you like it? I got this design from a catalog of old Winchester rifle stocks from the 1800's, so it's totally authentic. I thought it was cool. Made it and stained it in wood shop in the last two schools."

Sam could feel Dean scrutinizing his face, soaking up every expression like a dry rag, and Sam knew he wasn't disappointing because, damn, it was really hard to repress how impressed and moved he actually was.

His brother had just said to him the night before that academics were stupid and unnecessary. It wasn't the first time he had shared that sentiment either, but then, for weeks before, he had been working on this? It wasn't a hunter's weapon. It wasn't something that had any significance to Dean in function at all. He made it to be used every day in school. Sam had been wrong-even if Dean didn't understand, he was trying. He was. This was beautiful proof of that. And beautiful was the only adjective that could be ascribed to this piece. There was something else about his brother to consider that he never thought about- Dean, who swore like a trucker, flirted artlessly, and bludgeoned his way through interactions with others like an ape could also appreciate something delicate and exquisite, create it, and he could pass it on with pride, not embarrassment.

Sam's eyes filled.

"Dean."

"Do you like it?"

Sam nodded.

"What the hell, are you gonna  _cry_  about it?"

Sam swallowed hard and said nothing.

"That's awesome."

Sam looked up. His brother was smiling. "It's cool, right? It suits you. It's badass but kind of pretty, too."

Sam could forgive Dean for the implication that he was somehow "pretty" since "badass" had preceded it. He wiped at his nose. "It's...too nice."

"What the hell are you saying? Ten is a big number-it deserves something special. But just remember, no matter how old you get, you'll always be my 'little brother,' got it?"

Sam nodded.

"Okay, now, say 'thank you' or some crap, and then my perfect little 'Sam receives his awesome present from Dean' fantasy will be concluded." Dean made a photographer's box with his hands and centered Sam's bewildered, wet face in the center.

Sam could do that. Yeah, Dean was a great brother after all, changes included. He deserved his big finish. He definitely did. "Thanks, Dean. Seriously. It is awesome. It's the best thing I've ever gotten."

"Ahh, annnnd...scene." Dean dropped his hands and was clearly riding high on his triumph. Sam was inclined to give him the entire day to be smug about it if he wanted. Maybe that would be okay.

Maybe it was also okay to share some secrets considering how it turned out. Maybe it really was okay to leave things to Dean every once in awhile. After all, the colors of the world were right again; he wasn't feeling jumpy or terrified. His brother had firmly placed himself on a pedestal, and there was not a monster in that closet. Whatever it was, it was gone. Probably for good.

That was the moment when the front door burst open.

In retrospect, Dean's reflexes were impressive. Like, action-star-impressive. The smile and tired left his eyes and his 45 was aimed at the trespasser with both hands. Steady. His finger was on the trigger and his sight was set. Sam's reaction was to freeze.

Almost as lightning fast as the gun was leveled, Dean dropped it.

"Dad?"

(to be continued...)


	9. "Gallows Pole"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John returns home with an ominous revelation...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO SORRY for making everyone wait while I got back into this obnoxiously time-consuming school thing because it turned out this chapter needed a great deal of editing. And I couldn't have done it without Agelade.
> 
> And she keeps alluding to stuff from this story in her own, so I have to keep up and be worthy of that. And this was coming...
> 
> HOLY CRAP AHHHHHHHHH SO THANKFUL! Thanks, Agelade! People, go read her season 9 "Lustra" episodes because she's a better writer than I am. And also she thinks Boogeyman is canon because I've successfully brainwashed her (nyahaha).
> 
> If ya like, drop a kudos or a comment. It takes a second, but it makes the work allll worth it. :)
> 
> -Caladrius

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

**Chapter 9: "Gallows Pole"**

**Then:**

"Okay, now, say 'thank you' or some crap, and then my perfect little 'Sam receives his awesome present from Dean' fantasy will be concluded." Dean made a photographer's box with his hands and centered Sam's bewildered, wet face in the center.

Sam could do that. Yeah, Dean was a great brother after all, changes included. He deserved his big finish. He definitely did. "Thanks, Dean. Seriously. It is awesome. It's the best thing I've ever gotten."

"Ahh, annnnd...scene." Dean dropped his hands and was clearly riding high on his triumph. Sam was inclined to give him the entire day to be smug about it if he wanted. Maybe that would be okay.

That was the moment when the front door burst open.

Almost as lightning fast as the gun was leveled, Dean dropped it.

"Dad?"

**Now:**

Sam's eyebrows drew together as the small ominous feeling from a moment before stabbed him squarely in the chest. He sat up too, clutching a black and red ladybug into a hand that was suddenly sweaty. There was something to the set of John Winchester's shoulders, at the gaze he leveled at his two boys, that raised the hackles on the back of his neck.

For his part, John stood a moment, his face inscrutable. Was he relieved to see them both all right? Was he getting ready to murder his brother? The silence and stillness hung in the room like a hangman's noose. No one seemed prepared to touch it or break it.

John nodded at something only he knew.

That seemed to be the cue.

"Dad, I can explain." Dean put his gun down, as if the confession required disarmament-a complete and total vulnerability to his executioner.

John put his keys on the table and then fixed his eyes on his eldest son.

"Then explain."

Oh, Jesus, there was no way out of this. Dean looked down, he pursed his lips. Sam wondered if he might actually be concocting a lie to control the damage. If he was, it would be the ultimate first. But John was a million years ahead of them, as usual.

"The truth will come faster, son."

Of course it would, but who in this house respected things like "truth?" Sam felt the blood rush from his fingers and his heart skipped a beat.

"I asked him to," Sam said, faster than Dean could even open his mouth. He'd seen Dean go over his cot once. The memory and the anger and terror of it wasn't cold. He could take this heat if Dean had been willing to aim a gun at his closet all night with intent to kill. It was  _his_ heat to take.

Dean looked over at him, his eyes huge. Oh, hadn't he seen that coming? Or was the concept of his little brother taking responsibility for something just so foreign that he couldn't process why his brother was inviting the axe?

"What? Sam, no!"

Sam climbed out of bed. His knees were shaking from the weight of this thing he was trying to take on: the full force of John Winchester's attention. His stare. His  _judgment_.

"I could have kicked you out if I had wanted to," Sam tried to say nonchalantly. He looked at Dean and his brain was focused on imparting two words through brother telepathy:  _Shut. Up!_

"What?" Dean looked comically indignant and completely ignored the obvious message. "No, you couldn't've kicked me out. Like hell." He turned back to his father, trying to smooth it over somehow. "I just wanted to be sure. Sam was tired, he hadn't slept in  _nights_  and if there was something in the closet just then...Dad."

"Son, I told you to stay out of it." John's voice gave no indication that Dean's best intentions were going to mitigate one second of punishment for his transgression. Sam's chest felt tight. He shouldn't have let Dean do it. He should have pushed at him. He should have pitched some kind of fit, pissed Dean off enough so that he'd leave him alone to carry out that murder himself. Or die in the process.

 _Why weren't you here, Dad?_  Sam's brain finally asked the question. Why? Really? Was it only now occurring to him that all of this could have been avoided had their father ever told them  _anything_  at all? At the moment when it counted, wouldn't Dean have felt better, more confident, had he been there ? And, dammit, wouldn't Sam have, despite everything, given every ounce of his being to the task of proving himself? Wouldn't he have sold that little part of his soul for a second of praise, or even a  _nod_  of approval?

He wanted to say it. Accuse it. But what would be the purpose? So he'd feel better about completely putting his responsibilities on someone else  _again?_  Sam bit his lower lip and it felt better than  _this_.

"Sam, what were my instructions?"

Sam swallowed, "Dad, I...I didn't want to. That's all. It's not Dean's-"

"Sam," John cut him off. Quietly. The danger was mounting. "I said, what. were. my. instructions?"

Sam cast his mind back, but it wasn't difficult to recall them,  _relive_  them. They had nearly stopped his heart after all. "Take the gun. Hold it under the covers. Aim for the eye."

"And?"

And?

"And...and Dean was forbidden to interfere..."

"Those were Dean's instructions, not yours. You missed something. Something important. Try again."

Sam couldn't feel his toes. He scrubbed his brain searching for the one piece he could have possibly forgotten. He'd have protested that that was all there was to it, except Dad's eyes were intense and his voice carried the weight of life in its balance.

When Sam did not immediately respond he looked instinctively at Dean. But Dean's face was blank. His brother shook his head slightly. When the silence hung in the air for too long and the Winchester sons collectively felt the fire beginning under their feet, John said, "I told you to face it down, son."

Face it down...

"You had to be there to look it in the eye. To face what it was giving you. It feeds off of your fear. That's how it had you targeted. That's what kept its attention. The second your brother took your place, it was over. I told you, you had one chance to get rid of it."

The silence in the room worked down deep inside Sam, past childish excuses and sheepish fear of past disobedience, to drill at the bedrock. What broke open was a pit of rage that had been hidden so carefully even Sam didn't understand why his face became hot. His shoulders shook with seismic activity just before a volcanic eruption. Clenching fists ignored the pain of the little plastic hair tie burrowing into his palm.

"That's it? That's what you care about?" Sam carefully didn't look at Dean who was probably sending some psychic brother messages of his own which consisted of primarily two words:  _Sam, Stop!_  But the thing he had squashed to his core was open and oozing and Sam had neither will nor inclination to stem the flow if it. "All you care about is killing the monster? Not the fact that maybe it was going to kill me? Maybe that it would have killed Dean? You  _left_ , Dad. You  _always_ leave. And...and you didn't tell us  _anything._ You  _never_  tell us anything."

"I tell you what you need to know." John's expression hadn't changed. He looked tired, true, and unshaved, and there might be the scent of whiskey in the room, but that was always what he looked like, smelled like. To Sam anyway.

Sam stabbed a finger towards the way John had come in. "You walk through the door with a monster in the closet and all you are is pissed off that I didn't shoot it! When I couldn't see straight, when I was..."  _so scared_  he almost said, but didn't. If it was feeding off of his fear then everyone in the room already knew how scared he had been. For days. Still, somehow he couldn't admit that to his father out loud. He continued, "You're not happy that I'm alive, that Dean's alive. Not that. Just mad that-"

" _I'm not mad, son!"_

Sam and Dean jumped, and this time John raised his voice. It boomed, shook the cheap plywood drawers in their cheap plywood frames. Sam felt his anger become completely eclipsed by whatever his father was emoting. It happened so rarely, but when it did, it filled the room and left nothing in it. Not even air. It was suffocating. Sam was stunned to silence, his eyes wide.

"I'm not mad, Sam. I'm disappointed."

That was like a physical slap in the face. Sam's eyes dropped to the floor. God, ouch. It wasn't fair that that phrase uttered at him should hurt so badly. It wasn't  _right._  His father didn't have the right to be disappointed.

John continued softly. "Sam, I trusted you to take care of this. You were a target, but not the only target."

A cold dread froze all last vestiges of Sam's fury. What...what was he saying?

"The boogeyman is a creature of pattern and profile and It doesn't leave hungry, Sam. If you didn't see it, then someone else did."

Sam thought back. His father had been gone every day for hours or more for the last several weeks. That was all...research?

"Dad...you...did you know I was a target? Right...right from the start?" As soon as Sam asked, he wished he could take the question back. He didn't want to know the answer to that question. He didn't want to know that his father had brought him here as bait, had put him through nights of terror and sleeplessness, that his own father could do that to him in the pursuit of a kill. That would be too much, wouldn't it?

John's voice was steely. It passed judgment without mercy but never answered his question. "I put it into your hands, Sam, because I trusted you. You could have-should have done it. The only way you could have failed was to turn away from the responsibility. And you did."

His youngest son felt the load of those words break across his back. He pressed his closed fist to his stomach. He felt sick.

Dean tried to intervene, "Dad-"

"Sam is right, Dean. It was his choice. He knew what he had to do."

"Where...where did you go, Dad?" Sam was whispering now. It was the only way he could get the words out, and the words wanted to come out. Stubbornly. It was his only and last protection against this onslaught of  _disappointment_ which had somehow succeeded in drying up the overwhelming anger than had been there before. "Why weren't you here?"

"I told you, there was a profile. You weren't the only possible target, Sam. And the other targets would have been children-children who would have had a harder time facing their fears than my son. Or so I thought."

"Wait...then. Then..." Sam felt his lungs heaving. It was hard to speak. "What...what happened?"

"Since it didn't come here, it went somewhere else." John looked old. Really old. And the tone of his sentence was like a flatline. It was over for him. His hunt was over and he had failed, was that it? His son was a failure and so they had both failed and someone had...

Dad was always so worried about  _everyone_  else!

But it was hard to be pissed about that now when the implications of his father's words were sinking like a broken boat in icy waters.

Sam shook his head because this was just supposed to be  _his_  problem. It had  _always_ been his problem, right? "What...happens? Wh-when it...takes you?"

John looked sincerely like he'd rather just stop talking now. He picked up his keys. They clinked in his hand and he closed a fist around them, staring at the shape of that in his silence. Almost reluctantly he put them back down and drew back his hand away purposefully. Was he thinking of leaving? Was he going to try to find out who was now maybe gone  _forever_? Was he trying to run away from his pathetic loser of a son who had just  _disappointed_  him and had let some other person take his place?

Or was the truth  _that_ bad that he needed to be protected from it?

"The lore isn't clear, but it doesn't matter. A feeding ritual, maybe. Wherever the victims go, they don't come back. They're gone forever as far as the police are concerned."

Forever.

No.

Was it strange that now he didn't hate his father, he hated  _himself_? Was it fair that he hated himself because he had failed at this? Did other 10-year-old boys ever wonder if they let someone die for them?

No. It just couldn't be. Kids in his class complained about parents who wouldn't let them play Nintendo until midnight. They didn't complain about having to save people from the boogeyman because their dads said so.

"But maybe," Sam tried, attempting to stem the tidal wave of guilt that was breaking right behind the flimsy barrier of denial he was still attempting to hold up. "But maybe it just...left. Maybe it didn't...take anyone else. Maybe it didn't."

John took a deep breath and Sam liked to think that it was because his father was considering how completely and totally right he could be. He only had a few seconds to cling to that flimsy hope before his father's next words destroyed it.

"It wasn't any of the kids on my profile list because the 'FBI' had already visited their houses in the last three days to make preparations. But the police scanner confirmed a missing kid early this morning. A little girl."

A...a little girl?

"M...maybe she just...ran away. Maybe she just wanted to leave."

John shook his head. There was a whole story in that one movement. It said so many things because this was Dad, and when he wasn't shouting he was communicating in these small gestures that carried the weight of a little girl's life.

"What...what did the police say?"

John said nothing. He walked to the window. He opened the blinds and the light rushed into the room, exposing them. Exposing everything.

"Dad!"

"That's enough, son. It's over."

"Sam, don't."

This time it was Dean. He had come from wherever else he had been in the room up until that point and gently took his brother's arm right above the elbow. So, his brother was getting all of Dad's "don't want to talk about it," vibes too. So what? He couldn't just...he couldn't just be expected to let it go. Dean and Dad were trying to protect him  _now?_

"What did the police say, Dad? You don't think...you don't think I should know? Shouldn't I know?" Sam pulled away from Dean's hand and took a trembling step forward because this was his. Because this was on him and he knew it.

"Her mother thinks some stranger kidnapped her in the night when she was at work. People fall through the cracks, son-they don't get on a medical radar and they can't be researched. Like us."

_Like us._

"What do you mean? What does the hospital have to do with this? Was she sick or something?"

" _This is my normal seat. I've been...sick for a few days."_

Well, no. Just...no. That wouldn't be it at all. So many little girls in this town and there'd have to be a dozen that were sick today. Right now.

Sam's hand was full of a biting piece of plastic. He was just going to do this now before he freaked himself, and he didn't really care what his father thought of him or Dean or anyone. His legs were shaking a little because the ugliness of this confrontation with his father was sitting on his shoulder, so he had to grab the back of the chair when he got to the table. He flipped through the pages of his history textbook so fast that he ripped page 104.

"Sam?" Dean's voice was honest and confused because you don't just walk out of a conversation with Dad.

"I have to make a phone call."

It was that simple to say. What were they going to do? He wasn't a  _prisoner_  here yet, was he? That little piece of wrapping paper was in his free hand and then the phone was under his fingers and the numbers on the paper were a little blurry because his fingers were sweating and smudging the crayon. And then his finger slipped. Did he hit two 1's and not an 8? God, why were his fingers shaking so badly? It wasn't like he was calling the President of the United States.

He put phone back onto the receiver and when he picked it up again, he made himself calm. Her hair tie was between his palm and the headphone. Safe. He made his fingers dial slower this time.

It rang once. The woman who picked up the phone was frantic, her voice shredded from tears.

" _Hello? Hello?"_

Sam couldn't speak and he couldn't move.

" _Hello? Who is this? Please...please do you have my daughter? Please. Please, just...just let me talk to her. Just let me-"_

Sam slammed the phone back into the cradle and shook all over.

Fuck. This wasn't happening. Fuck fuck  _fuck!_  He opened his hand. He stared at the little black and red ladybug that he had protected so carefully from his brother's ridicule all night long-Amber's little charm that had given him sleep for the first time in so long...and in return, he had killed her.

He had killed her.

" _Sam, I'm really tired..."_

It was a punch to the gut. The anger was all gone. His father's disappointment didn't even register anymore. And whatever petty little thing he had been trying to hide from Dean was just...

Sam squeezed his hand to the shape of his birthday present, bruising himself. He pressed it to his chest. Over his heart.

His heart.

It was all ripped to bloody chunks and so was the protective veil over the truth.

" _I'm so much trouble._ "

Sam turned to face them. Dean and his father were like bugs in amber. In Amber. Frozen forever. Frozen. Cold.  _Gone_   _forever._

He looked at his father and finally understood.

There was a stillness in that motel room as if there were not three men experiencing a moment of horrible confusion or revelation of one kind or another. Sam lived a lifetime in that moment because no one was going to be able to rescue him from it. For the first time, he was completely alone with the knowledge that he had made a huge and horrible mistake, and the only one he could actually blame was himself.

The silence was ruptured by his next three words:

"I killed Amber."

There was a beat and then Dean's eyes went wide. "Oh, fuck."

_Can't swear like that in front of Dad, Dean. He'll slap your face. But I killed a kind, lonely little girl. What's my punishment? What do I get? What do I deserve? I had the gun in my hand. I had the gun right in my hand and I could have faced it._

Spirited away by the boogeyman. She had been seeing what he had been seeing, hadn't she? Tired and thin and sick and...and so much like him. But...but she wouldn't have known what to do. She was excited...

_Because I said I was going to call her._

There was movement in the room. He thought he heard Dean call his name, and his father was saying something, but nothing was registering in Sam's mind except the knowledge that he was a murderer because he didn't do what he was supposed to do. What he could do. What he should have done. He was always letting other people take over his burdens. He was always so morally indignant about shooting anything, including a monster. And so Amber was gone.

She was gone  _forever_.

Sam felt two hands on his shoulder. He was shaken a little, but not cruelly He looked up into his father's eyes. There was a kind of pain there, deep inside. It was a hard-edge pain. "Sam, you need to remember this. Remember this. If you won't pull the trigger when it's time, someone will die-you, your brother, a complete stranger. If you don't act when it's time to act, someone will die."

_It's time._

_Happy Birthday, Sam. You are a coward and a murderer._

Sam's chest constricted and oxygen and life was so far away because as much as he didn't want to, he got it. He perfectly understood what was going on, what had happened,  _what he had done_.

There was some noise in the background. It was fuzzy and funny sounding, as if he was at the bottom of a well and there was a point of wavering light way, way up there where his brother was saying something like "You can't say that to Sam" because Dean lived in reality and he knew. Because he had helped kill things with Dad and he knew...

_He knew Sam could never be more than a failure that needed to be protected, even from himself._

So it would go on. And on and on and on. And somewhere there was a mother who was crying for her little girl who was gone  _forever_. In his hand was a little plastic hair tie that had once been in a piece of notebook paper wrapping paper with his name on it from a little girl who had smiled at him and who was now gone  _forever._  The earthquake in his heart shook him down and covered him up and it was so  _hard_  to breathe.

More sounds-maybe a yell-up there somewhere where good people got to live.

The door shut, and Sam knew knew his father had left.

The severing of his presence cut any and all ties keeping Sam vertical. He lost sensation in his legs and fell to his knees.

"Sammy!"

Dean's arms were around him. He was holding him up. He was saying a bunch of things that were all running together in a way he hadn't heard in a long time. Maybe never before or ever again:

"Sammy, don't listen to him. This isn't your fault, okay? This isn't your fault. You didn't kill her, Sam. That monster did it. You didn't know. Sammy, look at me!"

He blinked, but Dean's face was a long way through a lot of cold water and ripples and heavy earth that pushed at him relentlessly. It was hard. He didn't want to fight it.

"Sammy!"

In a flash of sudden clarity, Sam felt and saw everything just as it actually was. Dean was frantic, there were tears in his eyes and a red mark on his face. Devastation looked different on him-Maybe it was because he was looking more like a grownup or maybe because Sam had actually never seen this expression.

It was amazing how horrible it was to know things. Sam knew things now, too, and he hated himself.

Sam opened his hand and showed Dean. It felt weird to uncurl his fingers from it, to let Amber go. It was wrong to think that this would be all he had left of her. It was so strange to imagine that she could be at a lunch table yesterday and never ever ever ever again.

Dean was looking at it. He was looking at it too and that hurt of reality felt right. It had to be real if Dean was looking at it too.

"She gave this to me." He said matter-of-factly, sharing the reality that he could no longer deny. "It was an early birthday present. Do you know, I killed her, Dean." He said it calmly, making himself accept it. It hurt so badly he thought he might die and immediately his mind closed his eyes to to the gallons and gallons of cold water between himself and everything else. The heavy earth wasn't oppressing anymore, it was comforting. It was dark and deep and if it seemed too quiet, then that was okay.

Dean grabbed his hand and closed it around the hair tie, as if he, too, couldn't even bear to look at it.

"Don't, Sammy. Don't. Blame me. Blame  _me._ "

But Sam wasn't going to blame Dean. He had been happy, secretly, that Dean was taking away his fear and giving him peace of mind. He had been happy at the actions that had led to this.

_Amber, I was happy and you were terrified...and now you're gone and we'll never talk again. Never forgive me for that. Never forgive me._

His face was covered with water from his eyes and from Dean's. His body and mind squeezed into a small place. He grasped at it. Clung to it. Escaped into it.

_Sam..._

_No. You're not here. You left._

_Silver smile. I did leave. But I didn't leave. Did you leave? You can leave for now. I like you, Sam. Now you know. Did you think that was easy? You did, didn't you? But now you know._

_I know. I know. I know it I know I don't want to know. I don't want to._

_But you can't_ un _know, Sam. And someday you will know so much more. But don't worry; you can leave forever if you want. You can come with me ..._

 _No. No...It's_ not _time._

_But it will be, Sam...It will be._

* * *

Three hours later, Dean stared at the wooden box with the intricate scrollwork. He thought about throwing it out. He really did. He wanted to burn down everything in this room that reminded him of Osseo, Wisconsin, but it was very likely the arson would cause some kind of trouble with the law, and they just couldn't afford it. Not with things the way they were now.

Dean stowed it all into the box, his feelings, and shoved it into Sam's rucksack. He stood up and flung it over his shoulder along with his own pack. The roar of the Impala's engine outside indicated that Dad was done on his end and it was time to go.

Taking a breath, Dean ventured to his brother who sat blankly on the edge of the cot.

"Okay, Sammy, we're going, okay? We're gonna get out of here. Doesn't that sound great?"

Sam said nothing. He'd said nothing for three hours. Dean knew something was wrong when Sam just stopped crying, stop clinging to his shirt after Dad left but this was...

Fuck.

_Okay. Get your shit together, Winchester._

"Sam, seriously, come on, man. You're freakin' me out." He took a knee in front of his brother. Sam's eyes were open. His hands were in his lap, but he was looking past Dean somewhere else. Somewhere way way way far away.

Dean swallowed.

Sam didn't  _not_  make faces when he was sad. He didn't  _not_  make faces at anytime. When Sam was mad at you, you knew it. Sam wasn't mad, he was just...just  _gone._

"Seriously, Sam. Snap the fuck out of this. D'you hear the car? We can't make Dad come in here..."

And hell, that should have worked like a charm  _somehow_  even if it was just to get a sour face or a scoff or a look of,  _fuck me_ , terror.

But there was nothing.

"I'm gonna leave you here then." Dean tried, tossing the phrase off as if it was the easiest thing in the world to say when, _be honest_ , it was like punching himself in the gut. Even when he got up and turned to leave, had gotten halfway to the door, his little brother never said a word and never moved. Dean knew, because he had been watching.

Dean pivoted his head and stared at the door that he hadn't touched yet. The door was still closed because it couldn't move unless it was acted upon, but there was Sam over there on the bed and he should have said something, moved  _something_. After a threat like that he should have been  _running_.

Without a word Dean turned back around, approached the cot, and reached down. He took Sam's hand and his heart gave a huge leap as it squeezed back a little, as if it knew something about holding on and was doing it even out of spite.

"Yeah, that's right. We gotta go now. Come on."

He gave an experimental pull. Sam slid forward until his feet touched the ground and he stood up, but his expression never changed. He was like a robot. Dean stared at the tenuous connection between them and reminded himself that he had stuffed his feelings inside of Sam's little birthday present,  _okay_ , along with that damn hair tie even though he shouldn't have done that.

When he walked to the door this time, Sam walked with him. When they left and Dean shut that door he cursed it. He pulled his brother to the Impala and opened the door. Sam obediently crawled inside as if running on a Sammy program: Into the Impala, out of the Impala, and so on and so on. Dean went around and got in next to his brother who sat so small in the seat, tilted halfway like a ragdoll discarded by the side of the road, and just stared.

Dean looked up into the rearview mirror and met his father's dark gaze.

Dean's face stung. His heart was beating at the inside of the pretty and badass box in the bag at his feet.

Dad looked like shit.

Dean nodded his head and that was the cue. The Impala went into reverse and the Winchesters shook the dust from their feet...

(to be continued...oh yes.)


	10. "Fuel"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The back story has caught up with the more recent past, but Sam's not letting this boogeyman thing go. No, he's not. And he's got a lead on someone who might be able to shed some light on things. Nothing has lost momentum after all, Deaners. So sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Muchas gracias to Agelade who reads my crap ("it's good!" she says) and finds my stoopid typos and just basically "Sam's out" for me to keep me motivated. And also for continuing to think "Boogeyman" is somehow canon for her "Lustra" season 9 episodes of awesomeness (all of which I get to see and beta while they are being made aahhaha I'm so privileged).
> 
> You should go read Agelade's stuff now. Her dialogue is like MAGICAL.

 

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

**Chapter 10: "Fuel"**

**April 2, 2007**

**Sam 23**

**Dean 27**

Open road. Budding green to the left and the right. Curves and inclines and it wasn't Iowa or Ohio  _thank God_  because there was nothing there to look at except corn. Or maybe alfalfa. Vegetables. Whatever. But Sam was in the passenger seat and after days of bullying Dean into motel rooms while he worked on his own he'd suddenly gotten passive this morning. And that should have raised the red flag, yeah, but he said he'd finally found a case that wouldn't involve loads of people or your friendly neighborhood FBI. He promised it was a  _normal_  case (no dreams attached) and Dean thought maybe it was going to be okay.

"Eastern State Penitentiary, huh? Why does that sound familiar?"

"I don't know, Dean. Prison on your mind lately?"

Dean made a face at the road.

"You're never gonna let me live down your Great SWAT Escape from Milwaukee, are you?"

Sam smirked, but it was short lived. His eyes dropped quickly back to the printouts and newspapers in his hands. It wasn't difficult to figure that response out, though. Stopping the shapeshifter at the bank had cost the Winchesters a lot more than they bargained for. Like putting Dean so squarely on the Fed radar that Sam had kept him out of the majority of the last two hunts. Like that poor ex bank security guard, Ron, facedown in a pool of his own well-meaning blood.

Dean cleared his throat. "Hey, give me a break. I've had practically nothing to do but listen to the radio, watch the news, and take long, long hot showers."

Dean glanced at Sam and was somewhat gratified to see his brother wrinkle his nose and process  _that_  little visual _._

"Then you probably heard about the three people who died at the penitentiary last week on a ghost hunt."

"Oh wait...yeah. Some...Ghost Facer-ish group turned on each other or something."

Sam sifted through two printouts. "Something like that. According to the police report, the three investigators were found dead in the west wing in the early morning. Looked like," he paused and tilted his head. "One guy's head was beaten in with a piece of broken masonry, another guy had a shard of glass shoved up through his nose cavity into his frontal lobe-"

"Pleasant."

"-and a woman hung herself from an exposed beam with cords from their own surveillance equipment."

" _Very_  pleasant. Amateurs."

"A lot of paranormal investigators are." He dropped the printout to his lap. " _Most_  of them are. Didn't stop you from giving Ron credit for  _his_ investigation." The head of lengthening hair shook slightly and refocused. "But this group had a good reputation. At least within their own community."

"Uh huh." Dean was unimpressed and pointedly avoided the Ron comment. "So, what're we thinking, vengeful ghost possession?"

"Yeah, I mean, that's what it looks like. Eastern State survives financially on its ghost tours and investigations. Two weeks ago they opened part of the west wing that had been previously blocked off due to structural issues."

"So, those three were the first group officially in there?"

"Yeah." Sam thumbed through another printout. "And get this, the construction company shoring up the foundations for that part of the wing experienced four crew accidents during the renovation, and they all happened during the day. Broken arm from a fall, a concussion caused by a trip, things like that... Minor, but if they were ghost-inspired, pretty powerful for midday."

"In other words, they woke up some pissed off former inmate and now he's possessing idiots with infrared cameras, shivving them with handy broken material, and breaking necks."

"It all fits. So now Eastern State has closed its doors pending an official investigation. The ghost hunting community is," Sam laughed mirthlessly, "pretty much freaking out about it. Apparently it's like their Mecca."

Dean glanced over at Sam and then back to the road.

"So, what, you wanna sneak in, figure out who's offing supernatural groupie co-eds and make this  _our_  case?"

Sam looked up. "Last I checked, that is what we do."

"Yeah, clean out the vengeful ghost so this place can open its doors and continue to sponge off the amateur masses? Seems counterproductive to the whole 'keeping the sheep safe' concept you were so on about in Milwaukee, Sam."

Sam shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Dean, they're gonna eventually open their doors again and more people  _are_  going to die if we, the  _professionals_ , don't intervene. Besides, I don't see the problem. This case is perfect for us. For you. You love Philadelphia, remember? You got to jack a cement truck last time we were there."

Dean smiled and nodded his head at the memory. The ghost of H. H. Holmes wouldn't be bothering anymore pretty blondes for a while. "Heh heh, yeah. Did you see the look on Jo's face when I backed that thing up? She was impressed, wasn't she?"

Sam looked at the ceiling and chuckled.

"Of course she was. I'm just sayin'..." Dean paused, "we've got a lot of other stuff on our plate right now. Why are you on fire for this?"

It suddenly got quiet. Sam turned his head and looked out the window. Dean took his eyes off the road to peer at him because Sammy Silence was Thinking-Too-Much silence.

"Hey. What aren't you tellin' me here?"

Sam licked his lips and slowly slid another computer printout from the bottom of his pile. "We're gonna practically pass through Greensburg, Pennsylvania while we're on the this turnpike." He checked a mile marker on the side of the road. "In like...two hours."

Dean's eyes narrowed.

"Okay? Greensburg? What's in Greensburg?"

Silence.

"Sam, come on. Greensburg?"

"Amber's mother lives there now."

" _What?_ " The blood in Dean's fingers froze almost instantly. "Sam, come on."

"Dean, just...just hear me out." And Sam physically turned his body in his seat, somehow managing to not spill his research material all over the floor.

"After what she did to you? You've gotta be kidding. What good could  _possibly_  come of this? Don't even answer that question." Dean slammed a hand on the steering wheel. He didn't want to hear that name. He didn't want to think of that name or that girl ever again.  _Dammit_.

"Her mom moved a month after...after everything happened. You were right when you said we have nothing to go on with the boogeyman, but this is my case and I've decided to work it. Dad didn't give enough information about the profile back then, but we know at least one of its actual victims. If this were any other case, we'd be following up on that. She and I...we had to have something in common, right? It's a place to start, and I figure if Dad could put it all together somehow, then I could, too, maybe, if I have some leads."

"And you mean to tell me that you've been researching her? Doing all of this, and  _hiding_  it from me, Sam?" Dean's voice rose.

"I wasn't...I wasn't hiding it, I was just looking into it. You're right, our plate has been full, but I can't just  _forget_ it Dean. I can't. Especially not now."

His little brother sat back and gave an unsettled sigh, shifted restlessly in his seat.

"Sam, you have to be honest, man. What's going on in that head, huh? Haven't you considered that all this is gonna put you into a state where you might not..." Dean cut himself off and shook his head.

"Where I might not, what? Be able to function when it counts? I keep telling you, that's the whole reason why I  _have_ to do this." He lifted a paper. "Farrah Dixon. She's a manager at an IHOP. You love IHOP. And it's on the way. It would take maybe an hour."

Dean was getting sick of the attempts to bribe him out of his reluctance, his anger, his full on  _fear_  of the consequences of this whole thing. Sam didn't get it because Sam was  _gone_  when he was...gone. That time when he was 10? Even Dad had started to think he might not snap out of it after all.

"That's not the point, Sam, and you know it."

"I had a dream, okay?"

Dean stopped with his mouth open, ready to keep going.  _Dammit_. Should have known.

"What kind of dream?"

"I don't know. I don't know anymore. I don't know, but I saw her again, the way she looked when she was eight...and..." he clenched his fists and Dean could hear it in his voice. "I feel like something is close. I'm not wrong, Dean. Dad must have purposefully kept all of the boogeyman info from his journal, from Bobby. Dad knew something, he  _knew_  something, and then...and then." Sam shook his head. "What if there really is...some kind of connection to Yellow Eyes? Isn't that part of the plate we're dealing with right now? If I'm going to fail, again, who's to say that finishing this couldn't have prevented it in some way? It was my first mission, and I...I screwed it up."

"Sam, you didn't do anything. You were  _nine_  and hadn't slept for days, okay? And anyway, I was the one who took the responsibility." My God, he didn't like talking about this, making it  _real_ again.

Sam was getting emotional too. "That's the problem, Dean, but it wasn't your fault. It was my responsibility. Will you face the fact that you will never be able to change my mind on that, okay, and let me do this? Please. Just one hour. If it gets us nowhere, then it was just an hour, and I'll shut up about it."

"Sam." Dean swallowed something that wanted to choke him. Sam was getting too close to this. He wasn't listening. "God, why am I letting you do this to us all over again?"

It was a rhetorical question. He hadn't expected an answer, but he got one.

"Because you can't stop me, Dean." Sam's voice was quiet. Resigned. "Because I will do this one with or without you."

The road became blurry.  _Fuck._

"Someday I'm gonna have to lock you up for your own good, Sam. Fair warning."

Dean could feel Sam relax a little at that, as if his big brother were joking, but he had no idea how terrifyingly possible those words felt in his mouth.

* * *

"Hey, what is it?" Dean smacked Sam's chest when his brother turned around to look behind them for the second time. The Impala was parked and his brother was rooted to the sidewalk of Anytown, America somewhere in Western Pennsylvania. "If you don't wanna do this, just say so. You won't be twisting my arm."

Sam winced and then narrowed his eyes slightly.

"You... get the feeling we're being watched?"

Dean glanced behind them, behind the Impala on this generic residential street in this "city" that was more like a glorified little town. With an art museum. Across the street was a man in his mid to late 60's, impossibly tan, sitting shirtless on his porch. At his feet was an old orange cat, asleep by the looks of it. From the color of his skin and the way he rocked back in the beat up computer chair converted to porch recliner, people-watching was likely his primary hobby.

"What, that guy? He's a porch sitter, Sammy. Every old town has one." He gave a chin nod and smile at the colorful local who did nothing but stare back. "I don't know. Maybe it's the cat. Want me to go interrogate the cat?"

Sam rolled his eyes and shrugged Dean off the way he always did when superior humor escaped him.

"What?"

"Just, come on. Or stay in the car."

"Hell, no." Dean caught up to his longer-legged brother who was striding purposefully towards the stoop of a standard brick two-story house. A few pink spring flowers stood in a couple of pots near the door.

"So, we're plains-clothing this? What's our angle?" Dean asked as they stopped before the door. His brother's eyes slid to him briefly. "Well, come on, Sam, don't tell me you haven't planned this."

"Just follow my lead, okay?"

Dean's expression was "if-you-say-so" and he blew out a breath as Sam pushed the doorbell. Bad idea. All of this. Sam's arms were by his side, and they clenched and released rhythmically. Compulsively. Dean's jaw moved. In two seconds he was going to take his stupid brother by the front of his jacket...

The door cracked and then opened to reveal a woman in maybe her late thirties early forties. She might have been Dean's type once (pretty and adventurous and ready to go), but now the lines around her brown eyes were tired. Suspicious. Her hair was hastily pulled back, and a thin wrist clutched the screen door handle from the inside.

"Yes?"

"Um...Ms. Dixon?" Sam faltered with his mouth open. Dean saw the face and tried to smile benevolently at the woman, ready to apologize, to grab this stupid kid...and then his jaw went slack when his brother spoke again. "My name is Sam. Sam Winchester?"

_What the actual fuck, Sammy?_

But something glimmered in the cold recesses of Farrah Dixon's eyes. She studied his brother anew but without the lens of fear. "Sam...Winchester?"

"I'm so sorry I just...just showed up without warning. We happened to be on our way east, and...and I was hoping I could have a minute or two of your time?"

It was the puppy face-good lord, that face-but it was so genuine, so open, so obviously carrying a weight of shared sorrow that Dean thought this plan was so crazy it just might work.

That was when she looked at Dean, and he realized, suddenly, that he wasn't wanted.

"This is my older brother, Dean," Sam said quickly. "We work together. He's okay."

" _He's okay?" Really, Sam?_

"Hi," Dean waved like a cowboy, flashing the smile that usually got the best response. Usually.

She nodded and pushed the door further. "Come in. When I got your e-mail, Sam, I was so...you understand why I just...couldn't believe it."

 _When she got your_ e-mail?

Dean leveled a look at his brother that said "when we leave here, you have an  _assload_  of explaining to do" which Sam fended off with a whispered "not now" as Amber's mother led the way into a plain living room, brightly lit with sunshine, and gestured for them to sit on a tan-colored couch. Farrah ran her hands down her thin arms, unsure, and then finally sat down on a tapestry-covered chair to Sam's left.

"Oh my God, I can't believe this. After all this time. And her birthday coming up." She put a hand to her mouth to still the emotion there. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. I didn't give you any warning we were showing up."

At least Sam had the decency to have not expected there would be a "yes" to this plan, but that was cold comfort because right now Dean wanted to be somewhere very far away. He should have stayed in the car. The emotions in the room between the two of them were suffocating.

"No, no. It's okay. I'm off today and...I tried to find out who you were, back then, but...but then the school said you withdrew, that you were gone, and they were forwarding your records but they couldn't tell me where. And then you sent that e-mail this morning and I thought, does this mean something? Because I've been dreaming about her so much lately."

Dean quickly looked at Sam's face. Oh yeah, no doubt about it-his brother hadn't been expecting that. This was going to go south so quick, so bad...

"You...you said you've been dreaming about her?"

Farrah nodded. "She walks right out of my closet and says...'Sam's going to call me on our birthday, Mommy.' Just like...just like she did on the phone that night. The night before...before some...monster took her away from me."

"Monster?" Dean asked, surprised.

"What else would you call a person who takes an eight-year-old girl from her home? Who never calls, who never...who never leaves...leaves anything for me to bury?"

Oops. And there was Sam, on cue, with the curdled milk look as he grabbed a tissue from the box on the coffee table and handed it to her.

"In your e-mail you said that you were trying to solve it? To find Amber?"

Sam sat up. "Yeah, my brother and I are...kind of like private investigators. I didn't know Amber for very long but...but I remember her. I was new in town and she was...she made me feel welcome. It's hard to explain. But if I can do something, I want to help."

The woman sighed. "Frankly, I gave up hope of ever finding her, but...but to meet you, finally, it gives me a...link. A link to her. I feel a little closer to her now." She rested her hand lightly on Sam's, and it was like the flipping of a switch.

Sam's eyes were filling. Crap.

Dean jumped in. Someone had to hold the torch here. "Um. Ms. Dixon, we're trying to put together a profile of the...monster...who separated you from your daughter. Is there anything you could tell us about her? Anything that might have made her..." Dean searches, "stand out?"

She sighed and her shoulders dropped and she repeated "stand out," with not a little bitterness.

"Amber was such a good girl. I mean that. A few weeks after she was born she had a fever so severe she stopped breathing." Farrah took a deep breath. "I had Amber when I was fifteen. I didn't know how to be a mother. The paramedics brought her back, and she was never strong after that, but my God, that little girl had such a big heart." She bit her bottom lip hard.

Sam nodded.

"Amber had this...uncanny ability to know what you were thinking, and she wanted so badly to please people. It wasn't really apparent until she was about five, but sometimes she would...answer thoughts I was having in my head. Answer them out loud, swore I had asked them to her. And she...she was so empathic. It must have been hell for her because I was trying to survive with her and I worked crazy hours and was so stressed out all of the time. It got to the point where all it would take would be me walking through the door and she would cry, and of course, I was tired so I yelled about that...I was a terrible mother."

Sam put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Where was her father in all of this?"

She shook her head and pressed the tissue to her nose. "Her father was never in the picture. He was a kid who 'got me in trouble,' and his family moved away the year after she was born and I had to drop out."

Sam's brow quirked. "You said...her father wasn't around? He didn't...he didn't leave on a hunting trip when Amber was five and not come back?"

"No, he never...why? Why ask that? Did she say that to you?"

Sam opened his mouth, checked what he was about to say. "I'm probably remembering wrong."

"Did  _your_ father hunt? Did he leave on a hunting trip and not come back?" She asked, innocently, but Dean watched the color drain out of his brother's face. He had to hold himself back from grabbing Sam's arm and hauling ass out of there.

"Amber was like that. She said things, tried to connect to people. She didn't mean to lie to you, Sam. I swear. It was like this...immediate and unconscious reaction." She put her hand on Sam's knee. It was pretty clear Sam was undone, but this lady would never know exactly why.

"Are you saying...are you saying your daughter could read minds?" Dean said finally.

"I know it sounds crazy, but yes. I mean that. But it didn't work out for her because she alienated anyone who ever got close to her. They called her a freak, bullied her at school. She was a complete outcast, and her health...it must have been horrible for her, but she was so quiet. I was always busy trying to keep a roof over our head..." The remorse in her voice was a mile of deep ocean.

Sam swallowed. He looked at the ceiling. It was so clear that he was going back there, and it was tripping every alarm system in Dean's head. This was some sophisticated torture, right here, and he had had enough.

"Thank you, Ms. Dixon. We're sorry to have bothered you, brought this up, and we'll go now." Dean did grab Sam's coat sleeve.

"No, wait." Sam pushed him back. "Ms. Dixon, did Amber...did Amber talk about anything weird before she...disappeared? Did she behave strangely?"

"She...she stopped sleeping. She developed that little-child fear of the dark and the closet and wouldn't sleep. Which brought on a fever. I had to take off work and we were behind on the rent and the gas company was threatening to shut us off." She swallowed and shook her head. "I...I prioritized things so wrong. I thought I was doing the right thing and I...I ignored what my baby needed. She needed me to be there. She needed me to hold her and tell her it was okay, that  _she_  was okay just the way she was. God. Just because you bring a child into this world doesn't mean you have the answers...until it's too late. Some mistakes can't be fixed."

_Most mistakes couldn't be fixed, just repeated. Get the picture, Sammy!_

Amber's mother stood up. "Wait here, please. There's...there's something I want to show you, Sam." His brother managed to nod and she walked out of the room.

Dean took the chance to whisper, "Sam, don't do this. Let's just go."

And he knew that at any other time Sam would have told him to back off, to give him five more minutes, to argue that it was worth it, but he didn't. He put his face into his hands and closed himself away in his grief. The old fear in the pit of Dean's stomach crept up into his mouth, into his throat, a choking anger,  _fear_...

She returned with a yellowing piece of paper.

"Sam."

His little brother looked up and he was upset and it wasn't professional, no, but he had introduced himself as Sam Winchester, and so, yeah, this came with the name. This hurt came with the territory.

"If...if you never find my daughter, I just always wanted you to know that...that I am grateful. You were right to be mad for her sake. Thank you for telling her that I loved her. She believed you. You must have been earnest because she would have known if you were lying. She was like that." Shakily she handed Sam back the letter he had written in pencil so many years ago.

Sam held that paper in his hands and he was nine-years-old. Dean never thought he'd see that little brother again-the boy who wrote poems and hid them, who once studied a daisy for a half an hour because it was  _"so soft, Dean!"_ -but here he was, raw, tattered. Beaten. He was nine and then he was ten, and he was lost, and he was saying  _"I killed her..."_

"Please...don't thank me." It was so full of  _guilt._

_Fuck you, world. Leave my brother out of your drama. Leave him out of it!_

* * *

"Hey, you okay?"

Two hours of quiet turnpike time for Sam to process everything into his little notebook was long enough.

Sam's hand paused.

"Yeah."

"Um, pardon my French, but you seem pretty fucking far from okay."

At that, he did look up.

"I'm managing."

"Ain't the same thing, Sammy."

"Yeah, well, it's the thing that counts, right?" He went back to writing.

"Maybe. So, how long was it gonna be before you told me about the dreams and the e-mails, huh?"

"When they actually...led to something. And they did." Sam swallowed and looked away. "It was all just paper pushing to this point. If you know how to work a computer, you can find anyone in this world, Dean. And it was one e-mail, just one to verify she was who I thought she was, for her to hear from me."

"Okay? And the dreams?"

His brother sighed. "They started about a week ago. With her. She...Amber she came out of the closet in the motel room, and said..." He stopped.

"What did she say?"

"She said, 'call me on my birthday, Sam'."

Dean got a chill in spite of the fact that eerie shit was pretty much his job.

"Like her Mom said? What, like...like some kind of Carol-Ann-through-the-tv-static SOS? Like, 'call me on the Dead Phone' thing or what?"

Sam shrugged his shoulders.

"How many times?"

The engine hummed as miles sped by.

"How many times, Sam?"

"Three."

"What the hell, and you didn't think that was worth mentioning?" Dean remembered waking up from his own nightmare not long ago. Sam at the computer. Sam with that hair tie. It all made sense now. Even then, the closed-mouth little bastard.

"Dean, seriously, if I give you a head's up every time I dream something weird, feel something off, see something strange, you'd barely let me go to the bathroom by myself."

"Oh yeah.  _That's_  comforting."

"Try to put yourself in my shoes for 20 seconds, Dean. I mean, there's a demon out there who's killed our mother and father and told me he has 'plans' for me. On top of that, add in the dreams that come true about people dying, ghosts from my past, and that constant feeling that I'm being watched. And I won't even bring up Meg and her revenge possession, the things I did when I wasn't...me. I  _shot_  you." Dean could feel Sam looking at him pointedly. "I'm  _managing_  it, okay, or else my big brother is gonna have to kill me to save me from myself."

"Hey, hey. I told you, not gonna happen." Dean backed off, but he had just flipped the switch from "Think About That" to "Hell No, Not Now, Thanks" and proceeded with as much detachment as he could. The white knuckles on the steering wheel were the only indication of how difficult that process had been.

"So, you were tryin' to work the case, get a profile on the boogeyman. What d'ya have?"

Sam slipped open his notebook and glanced through it. They were by no means in safe territory, but it was more productive now, and there were still about two hours to Philadelphia if he kept up this speed.

"Well, the most obvious connection is our birthdays."

"Yeah. Same day."

"I thought, at first, that the thing we had in common was that our fathers were both hunters of some kind, but that wasn't it."

"No, but that pretty much clinches something else."

"Yeah." Sam looked up. "The psychic connection. Dean, do you think...do you think there's a link with her to Yellow Eyes too?"

"Well, you were close in age, but she didn't have the burning-house-dead-mom thing, obviously," Dean offered.

"Not all of the other psychics who've encountered Yellow Eyes fit that profile, though, remember? And none of them knew about their abilities until they were grown adults. Including me."

Dean couldn't believe he was going to say this but...

"That's just when they  _noticed_ them, Sam. What about the mom? She said she was having dreams. Like mother like daughter?"

He saw Sam shake his head out of the corner of his eye. "No, I don't think so. Remember when she talked about the fever? I bet that's what triggered it. There are all kinds of theories about psychic abilities, but the most credible ideas link it with the possibility that the brain, which we still don't know a lot about, 'wakes up' to parts normal people don't use. There have been a number of cases of people coming back from near death experiences and having visions, being 'sensitive.'"

"Whatever, Sam, it's not coincidental."

"What isn't?"

"You and...and Amber. The psychic connection. However you got it, you both are way up on the _Scanners_ list of suspects."

Sam sighed. "Maybe. So, the boogeyman targets children with psychic ability. That doesn't make it completely easy to track, since a kid might not have been showing any signs of it when they disappeared."

"But we have a date and a place."

"Yeah. Dad said he tracked it to that time and town. So, Osseo, Wisconsin on May 2nd. Birthday. Children with some kind of psychic profile. Do you...do you think this...creature...is actually working with Yellow Eyes somehow?"

Dean swallowed. It hardly mattered when there was a timetable and an eager Sam and a known monster he was running right towards.

"Listen to me, Sam. We don't move on this until we find out for sure how to kill it. You hear me? I don't know what Dad was thinking, but I know what  _you_ are thinking. There isn't an assload of lore on this thing for nothing, okay? It's made sure it's damn good at what it does, and what it does is  _not_  leave people behind."

"Yeah."

Sam didn't look happy. Didn't seem grateful that he was making progress, and it's not like Dean was going to blame him for it, but God, he could just  _stop_  this anytime he wanted. If it hurt, why didn't he just stop?

But he knew the answer before the question was even formed all the way in his mind. For a kid who made it his job to test their father from the age of 10 onward, Sam was a lot like Dad. Too much like Dad: the meticulous research, the unhealthy obsession, the dedication to self-destruction, the inability to let the past stay in the past. Damn this Yellow Eyed demon thing, already. Wouldn't it be enough to just find  _that_ fucker, end him, and then clear the slate? It wouldn't bring Dad back, but it would at least mean his death hadn't been for nothing. What the fuck was Sam proving? That he could top Dad in the badass department? That he could survive longer?

Even though Dean carried Sam out of a burning house, even though their father was the most intimidating hunter on the planet, even though Sam was three times smarter than the average human being, It was scary to think that not a single one of them was technically a "survivor." Sam escaped the boogeyman once, but the little brother he had been before he was ten died that day too, and there had been nothing to bury.

Their father's obsessions had lead him to hell. Where were the rest of them going?

(to be continued...)

(Author end note: That porch sitter dude in Greensburg? ACTUAL person. I wrote every detail about the guy who sits on the porch of a corner house a block up and over from me. He needed a place in a SPN story like whoa.)


	11. "Tea for Two"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dad says that Sammy will come back eventually, but Dean's got good reason to believe something else is going on. Fourteen years later, the brothers find out that Yellow Eyes is only really concerned about one thing...and Sam's already met it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Sorry for the hiatus. Contrary to my high school students' belief, I actually do have more homework than they do, and school is now in full swing.
> 
> Much thanks to Agelade, a professional, who reads this stuff and gives me great feedback. Even teachers need teachers! Thanks to her, the stuff I wrote three months ago looked like crap to me, hence the time I needed to add/fix it.
> 
> You want awesome SPN fic? Go read her "Lustra" season 9 AU if you haven't yet. (I happen to know she's working on episode 5.)
> 
> Thanks for reading and reviewing! THANK YOU DEAR SWEET LORD!
> 
> -Caladrius

 

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

**Chapter 11: "Tea for Two"**

 

**May 6, 1993**

**Dean 14**

**Sam 10**

If Dean thought about it too much, he started to lose it. It was that simple. Four days later and Sam still hadn't spoken a word, still hadn't moved to do any damn thing on his own. Including the bathroom.

God. His brother was completely potty trained by eighteen months, all right? It was a necessity back then, but kids don't always internalize necessity at eighteen months (some couldn't even  _walk_  by eighteen months). Sam did, though. He was like a  _genius_  at the toilet, actually, didn't need the Cheerios or anything. But eight hours after he went dark, Dean found out what it was like to clean up after your ten-year-old brother like an infant. And then it had to be all scheduled on the dot and Sam had to be walked to the bathroom and Dean had to take him into the stall, _and yeah, you fucking pervert over there at the urinal in the rest area, I'm fucking_ watching _you._

And Sam couldn't follow a verbal command for anything, but he seemed to at least be able to perform some actions on instinct. At least Dean didn't have to  _hold_  anything for him, Jesus, and he could sit there and do a number two on his own,  _thank God_.

At a table he'd hold a spoon or a fork, but he couldn't go through the motions of even feeding himself. So, yes, here we go again. Flashbacks to a burbling kid haphazardly booster-seated in a cheap dinette chair with Dean's backpack and a length of rope to keep him up a little, keep him from pitching over, while Dean made faces at Sam spitting up half a mouthful onto his shirt. Wasn't like they could rent a high chair; the motels Dad picked were cheap and not exactly family-friendly, and Dean was barely out of booster seat himself. But Dean had been resourceful and careful even at going-on-six. He  _was_  careful because Dad wouldn't have accepted less. He was  _so_  careful. And isn't that why they were in this situation to begin with?

 _Fuck, Sam. Sammy_.

What the hell was going on in there and why the hell weren't you coming out and fuck.

_Fuck fuck fuck. Don't think. Shovel the damn mac and cheese. Get the kid fed because he's not gonna do it himself today. Maybe tomorrow, but not today._

Dean's hand on Sam's was steady. He was trying to teach his brother's arm how to eat again, get this motion to work. He thought maybe he was making some progress after four days, actually. Sam had taken two bites on his own but then just stopped, like a wind-up toy that had all wound down.

It wasn't working. Dean squeezed his eyes closed.

At least taking care of Sam's physical needs could keep Dean occupied. It kept him moving and thinking all over again about how to dress and bathe this totally unresponsive person-try to find out what Sam might be able to do on a kind of automatic pilot. It kept Dean focused on how to solve an immediate problem.

But then it was night and it was dark, and Dad was gone and it was just him and Sam. And Sam wasn't completely lost in a textbook or writing in a notebook, and there was a whole  _sound_  that had come with those things, somehow, and it wasn't  _there._

And then Dean had to look at his kid brother. Had to remember everything and think about Sam crying and his hand on that ladybug thing saying "I killed Amber." And three motel rooms in four days Dean had to look at the goddamn closet and wonder. They were 1267 miles from Sam crying inconsolably, but he might have been just standing there in that room facing the closet in Osseo wondering how and where and why the boogeyman was and how Dean had fucked up, and  _if_  he had fucked up, and was it really over?

Because Dad had said it was over that night in that first motel after Sam checked out, and Dean even thought he believed Dad when he said it, because Dean had gone out for five minutes to get soda and crackers from the vending machine and ice, and when he came back Dad was holding Sam in his lap. Just holding him, brushing the hair from his cheek. And he was saying,  _"It's over Sam. No sense in staying away. Come on back . It's over, I promise. It's over. I'm sorry. Come on back, son._ " His father's voice was soft, but a different quality of soft. Not a threat, not a command-because those were also soft-but genuinely gentle.

And Dean wanted to be sick because it was too much like Sam was gone forever. Dad's hands, his gentle voice...Dean hadn't even known it existed like that. Not for him, anyway. For mom, sometimes-though Dad didn't even talk about her, ever-and now for Sam.

That night, John hit the bottle harder than usual and three days later still hadn't crawled out of it.

So, yeah, maybe  _it_  was over, but Sam was still  _gone_  and Dad was nursing a drink or killing something somewhere else. And did it feel like Dad was running away? That the Impala was moving in a straight line to put as much distance between them and that place as possible? Or was it, like Dad said, just that they had to keep moving, keep doing what they do and Sam would come back in time.

Dinner was over. Bath time was over. Sam smelled like motel soap and he was still on the dinette chair like he was part of it. Dean's hand was halfway through his own hair as he stood in front of Sam and stared down at him.

"Sam, I know you're probably just fucking lost in that goddamn huge head of yours. See this? This is what happens when you take school seriously."

Hazel eyes gazed flat on someplace beyond Dean's kneecaps. On a whim, in desperation, Dean found Sam's bag at the bottom of the stuff they had carted in. There were a few used paperbacks in it, a couple of comic books. They were thumbed through a million times because books were heavy and Winchesters needed a crapload of space to store weapons, so Sammy always made due with what few books he could keep and reread them until their spines broke.

Dean picked one Sam had read to death, apparently:  _David Copperfield._ Cool. A story about a magician. But when he flipped to the first page and started to read, his eyes glazed over.

"Jesus, Sam,  _this_  is what you've been reading? What the hell. It's barely English." He took a knee in front of his brother and waved the book in front of him. "Hey, you in there? You want me to read this to you? Seriously, I should be getting at least a fucking 'hello' right now for even suggesting it."

Sam stared away.

"Fine. Then guess what. No  _David Copperfield._  You like Batman better anyway. Feel free to stop me anytime with a smartass comment." He reached down and took Sam's hand.

And there it was. Connection. Because even if Sam couldn't feed himself, he would hold on. No matter what was happening, he'd hold onto Dean's hand, and wasn't that just the fucking kicker of the year? It was like Dean's fucking  _reward_  for taking point, for somehow screwing with the boogeyman, for getting some little girl killed: Sam was holding his hand again.

 _Fuck_.

There was no god in heaven, just some twisted creature that liked irony. And not even the nice kind. No fairy godmother for the Winchesters. No awesome, benevolent deity to take some kind of pity on him and his damn little brother whose biggest problem was just...loving the whole damn world. Nothing but all this hollowness and the false feeling of being wanted because a catatonic kid held his goddamn hand.

When Dean tugged, Sam stood up. When Dean walked, Sam followed. When Dean put him into the bed, Sam lay there like a board and gazed at the ceiling. And Dean felt actual relief getting into that bed, on the side closest to the closet because, what the hell. No chances. He slid his gun under the pillow, flopped onto his back, and then opened up the comic book. His arms raised it over his head and he kinda leaned it towards his brother so that at least he was staring at a page and not a ceiling.

"There's some suspenseful shit in this one, Sam. If it gets too scary, scream like a little girl."

_Tell me to get out of the bed. That you can handle it._

"I'm serious. It can get intense. The Joker, y'know. Probably a lot more intense than  _David Snoringfield._ "

_Come on. Push me out. I dare you. Tell me you're sick of me babying you. Tell me again how you're four years old already and can sleep in your own damn bed._

Dean read the comic cover to cover. He made sound effects. He cackled like the Joker. He read all of Batman's dialogue in a quiet, serious voice that yeah, sounded like Dad's. And at the end, at the "to be continued," Dean blew air out of his mouth, wished Dad had left some whiskey in the room, and switched off the light.

Dean turned towards his brother.

"'Night, Sam."

Sam's eyes silently reflected light from the crease in a curtain. When Dean put his hand up and closed them, he shivered to the depths of his being.

* * *

" _Oh, Mr. Winchester, you've been a naughty naughty boy."_

"' _Naughty' is my middle name, Mrs. Watson. What're you gonna do about that? Make me write the problem on the board again?"_

_Dean loved that line of cleavage beneath the tight white Oxford shirt When she leaned over his desk, he could almost alllmost see the top of the mountain in that tiny lacy black bra._

_Damn, 8th grade math was so sexy._

_Mrs. Watson had this little shocked mouth painted in red lipstick. Her blond hair was kinda all falling out of this bun on her head, and this skirt? Well. How short was this skirt? He reached a hand out and touched her knee._

_Pretty damn short. Hallelujah._

" _You're a hoodlum and a delinquent."_

_Like music._

" _Yes, ma'am."_

" _And I'll be keeping you after school for a personal detention."_

_Dean took a deep breath and grinned all the way to his toes._

" _Don't go easy on me, Mrs. Watson. D'you think maybe I could have some corporal punishment with that ruler too?"_

" _No."_

" _What? Hey,_ my  _dream..."_

" _No..."_

_Mrs. Watson was gone. Sam stared down at him blankly in her place_

_What the fuck?_

" _Sam? Did you just say-"_

" _No."_

Dean woke with a start. He panted and all the heat and pressure in his 14-year-old wheelhouse quickly evaporated as he looked over at his brother's open eyes.

"Sam?"

He grabbed his shoulder and shook him. Dean swallowed his heart for seconds, minutes, hours. The silence in the room was complete.

"Fuck, Sammy. Jesus. What the-"

Was that just all a dream? It could have been because Sam's voice had been gone for days.  _He missed that voice!_

Sam's lips moved. "No. I hate it. You're too cold. It's cold."

 _What the hell? What the hell!_ _That_  wasn't something he dreamed.

"Sammy? Sam!" Dean shook his brother. He repeated his name over and over. "What the fuck are you  _saying?_ "

But Sam said nothing more. Dean rooted around in that blank stare, climbed through it desperately like trying to uncover a body he knew had been buried alive-time was precious, breath was ebbing away...

...But there was a cement bottom, and it entombed its secrets, and Sam was still gone.

His words, however, lingered to chill the air.

" _You're too cold."_

* * *

Dawn broke, and with it, the silence: The Impala's engine stopped in front of the room and Dean looked up, red-eyed from his vigil of a (sleeping?) Sam as John Winchester pushed the door open far too heavily.

"Dad!"

Dean jumped out of bed. Even without the quiet order, he was grabbing the Marine med kit and throwing it open while John tilted straight toward the bathroom. The scent of blood and sweat and whiskey was almost overpowering.

"What happened?" He grabbed a suture needle and thread and his lighter. Did there look like a lot of blood? Yes, but he'd seen worse and Dad was still a fucking tank even if he was drunk enough to put three guys under a table.

"Vampires. Thought it was one, two at max, but they did a hell of a job covering their tracks."

"How many?" Dean asked academically.

"Five."

_Five? Jesus, Dad. Don't be too awesome or anything._

John sat on the covered toilet and bled obscenely from his shoulder into a mostly-pristine white towel-three deep, straight lines. No punctures. Thank God. Dad was the best hunter in the world, seriously. Dean thread the needle and crudely disinfected it with the flame of his lighter wishing he could have been there-wishing he could have helped.

"Did you get them all, then?"

"Think so. I'll make one more pass to be sure."

Dean nodded and then concentrated the fuck out of his suturing job. Dad was bleeding non-stop, and he was pale and he hadn't bothered shaving in five days, at least. When Dean pulled the thread through skin, John flipped out his wallet and placed a $20 on the sink with his uninjured arm.

"Take Sam across the street later and get what you want for 482 miles. Get me my usual."

"Yessir."

And then the bathroom was a blank canvas of silence that Dean wanted to carve into with his bowie knife-It was too flat and white and calm and empty...like his little brother. He had to bring  _it_ up even though Dad didn't like to repeat things he had already engraved in stone.

Dad was super touchy right now; killing an odd number of vamps beyond one wasn't a good thing because they tended to pair up pretty hard, and an odd number could mean stragglers. If something hadn't gone the way his father expected, then  _you better walk on a fucking eggshell and stow the_ other  _thing for...later._

And then Dad read his mind and said, "How's Sam?" and instead of feeling relieved, his oldest son tensed.

"What is it?"

Dean didn't tug too hard on the thread.

"Son?"

"Sam's the same, sir. But. He said something."

It was like a bucket overturned onto his father's head. Meaning, he sat up straight.

"What did he say?"

Dean told him. He told him every hollow word, as well as the fact that Sam hadn't moved in the three hours since.

John was silent as Dean finished up, tied off, and cut the thread with his knifepoint. He was silent as Dean cleaned up the blood and wrapped the wounds. It was only when Dean stood back that his father said:

"And?"

"Sir?"

"What else?"

Dean didn't make eye contact because eye contact was something for truths, and usually Dad was the keeper of them. But Dad's gaze was on on him and he couldn't move-there were still shards of broken glass all over the floor of this conversation, and Dean had to somehow get back to Sam in the other room.

So he said the one thing that was safe and true and couldn't be denied by his father or anyone or anything under heaven or in hell:

"I'm worried about Sam."

His father's hand lifted into the air and Dean braced himself-but it merely dropped onto his shoulder. It wasn't light and Dean flinched. He held his breath, but his father said nothing about  _that_  and he wondered how long until the other shoe dropped and Sam's gentle Dad of the first night turned into the Dad Dean knew when he was like this.

But his father merely said, "Makes two of us," and he exited the bathroom, clearing a path of tentative safety back to the bed for his eldest to follow.

John leaned over Sam with a penlight, checked his pupils. Sam lay there and didn't complain. Dean watched numbly nearby as the man incensed his brother's catatonic body with whiskey breath.

"Sam? Sammy?" Those shoulders were small under Dad's hands. The shake was probably rougher than he meant. Normally, they earned their bruises if they didn't respond immediately, but Sam couldn't defend himself and maybe Dad would  _accidentally_  forget that...

 _Dammit dammit. Get his attention. Just do it._ Say  _it!_

"Sir, you said...nothing could still...be after Sam."

There it was. The plunge into the shallow end filled with double-edged razor blades. He held his breath. But their father's hands came away from Sam and it was a relief because John was a fucking badass, greatest hunter ever, but he was drunk and not having a good night and Sam wasn't saying "yes, sir" and so...

"It's moved on. It got what it wanted." There was an exhausted sigh in his father's voice and Dean got out of the way when Dad wanted to be freed from Sam's circle of silence.

"What Sam said sounded like...a conversation," Dean nudged.

"Trauma. People say things. Might be in a dream state." He picked up the ice container and tossed it to Dean. "You're relieved for a few hours. Get ice, son."

And that was it.

"Yessir."

* * *

A few hours was more like fifteen minutes.

John was snoring deeply when Dean bent to tie Sam's shoes a couple hours later. Sam's nondescript shirt. Sam's nondescript pants. Brown hair a little mussed, but Dean swiped his fingers through it once and it was okay. It was passable for public. There was nothing weird about two brothers buying road food in a convenience store. Sammy looked too old to be hand-held, yeah, but it wasn't  _strange_ probably _._

Dean's concern was warranted. Not quite two years ago, there had been an "incident" with the law and child services and thank god Sam had been too smart for his own good then. When Dean and John finally got him back, he was sitting in a PD office room with a child psychologist drinking a chocolate milkshake like he had planned his own fucking vacation. After that, John and Dean were a lot more careful about public appearances. Of course, part of the problem was that none of them knew, exactly, what was accepted as "normal" when they were three guys on the road who actively hunted monsters for a living.

On top of Dean's hyper awareness that somebody somewhere was going to be watching him was the problem that the $20 Dad gave him wasn't exactly enough for "the usuals," which meant Dean was going to be padding his coat. That particular operation was a cakewalk when Sammy was on point, distracting the clerk with over-curious questions about prices for things, and how many of those came in a pack and he'd like two of those, please. Old lady clerks, young lady clerks, crotchety older clerks-they were all easy prey for Sam. Maybe it was the innocent-kid thing, or maybe he was just that charismatic. Whatever it was, his brother was a fast hand, but a sweeter talker.

Dean frowned at the $20. He was down a man.

Shoving the money into his pocket, he tugged at Sam's hand and his brother stood up from the bed like a toy soldier coming to attention. It fucking hurt.

Dean looked over at their father, hoping he was sleeping himself sober, but completely aware that Dad's "usual" involved a bottle of Old Granddad. With Sam turned off and Dad keyed up, it was up to Dean to keep bailing.

He could do it. He would do it all day and all night.

The convenience store was only a couple blocks away. Twice Dean looked down at Sam, wondering how the fuck he could walk when he didn't seem to be watching anything. And then, wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, they happened to pass right in front of a small local comic book store.

The window front of a comic store was better than a fucking Christmas-lit mall-just wall to wall heroes in technicolor flying, leaping, flexing, smiting, grimacing, smiling and punching their way to justice.

"Holy shit."

Dean stopped and stared. He salivated. He put a hand on the window.

"Jesus, Sammy, look at it. Fucking beautiful. How many can I hide under your shirt? You need some new material, man. Look," he pointed, "Batman  _and_  Batman crossover, huh? Yeah? Wanna get some of tha-"

Dean's voice shut down mid stream as he caught a glimpse of Sam's face reflected in the glass. Trick of the light? Or...

"The fuck-"

He breathed.

Sam's eyes were shiny.

" _I thought…I thought I saw eyes. They were…shiny, like hematite."_

Dean grabbed Sam's shoulders and turned him to face him.

* * *

"Dad." Dean said it once. He said it loud and he didn't touch the man, and John Winchester was awake and sitting up from a full snore. Thank God. Thank God because  _fuck_. He was shaking and yeah, eggshells and glass shards and  _whatever the fuck_ because he could live without his feet but not without Sam.

"Dean."

"Dad. Is it...is it possible. Just, please, sir...is it possible that the boogeyman or something is still hanging around?" He was not going to completely lose his shit in front of Dad. He was going to be calm. Tell him. "Is there any way to know for sure? Some hoo doo or something?"

John Winchester was slowly getting off the bed, and maybe he wasn't buying Dean's completely calm, rational act, and he had already addressed this twice and so there was probably a consequence here.  _Talk faster._

"Just now, Sam's eyes..."

John stopped.

"What about them?"

"Gunmetal shiny. Like hematite shiny."

Dad looked over at Sam standing completely still. Of course his eyes weren't doing the thing  _now_  because that would have been too simple.

"Sir, I swear."

John took a deep breath. "Dean, you need to pull yourself together, son."

" _Dad_." Dean raised his voice. He was throwing himself at a bear, but he was 14 and he couldn't drive legally and he didn't have Dad's contacts or know all the stuff Dad knew and Sam was gone and Dean could not  _do_  this on his own. Not yet. He clenched his fists.

"I'm askin', is it possible? Do you know everything about it? Because I fucking saw it. I looked right into Sammy's eyes and I saw  _it_. I don't have an imagination that fucked up that I see monsters in my brother when I'm walking down a fucking street."

John's face went pale. It made Dean sick, but he felt his whole life had maybe lead to this point.

"You tell me it's completely not possible, I'll believe you, but if there is a  _chance..._ "

Silence. His father looked away. Dean expected a backhand, had been ready for it for the F-bombs alone. This reaction was somehow worse.

"If there  _is_ a chance," he went on, quieter. "Dad, if there's a chance, we gotta know. Please."

John walked around Dean and squatted in front of Sam. Maybe he was looking for what Dean saw. Maybe he could see something Dean didn't. Maybe he could see Mom there, in Sam's features. His father took a deep breath and brushed a big calloused thumb against Sam's cheek.

"Dad, can we get information? Can we do something?" Dean swallowed.

John wrapped his arms around Sam and gingerly picked him up. His brother immediately rested his head on Dad's shoulder like it was the most natural fucking thing in the world to do.

"I've got a few things I can check. Grab the bags."

Dean felt his heart start. He wasn't sure when it had stopped.

"What about the vamp nest? You were gonna do one last sweep."

"In the opposite direction from a library I need. When Sam is back on his feet again, we'll come back."

_Screw you, Batman. Dad is a fucking hero. He's the only hero we need._

Dean nodded and turned to get their things. For the first time in days he felt some shred of hope.

"Son?"

"Yes, sir?" He turned around.

John nodded quietly at him over Sam's shoulder. "You may have made the right call."

Dean couldn't say "thank you" because he was holding back a flood of bitch tears. He nodded. It was hot, this feeling in his stomach. It was a chaotic mix of emotions and it fueled him as he hastily packed their things.

When the Impala was roaring down the highway and the music was turned up and Dad was watching the road, Dean put his arm around Sam's neck and leaned down to whisper in his ear.

"Sammy, Dad's gonna get you out, okay? You just hang on in there and wait for us." He swallowed and continued grimly. "And if by chance there is some fucking boogeyman tuning in, listen up, because you're gonna lose, you son of a bitch. Do you hear me? I don't fucking care how sneaky you think you are-you're gonna fucking  _lose_ to the Winchesters, I swear to God."

* * *

**April 7, 2007**

**Dean 28**

**Sam 23**

It turned out that the trip to Philadelphia and Eastern State Penitentiary created an unforeseen little side job. Sam pointed out the tail on the turnpike and Dean swore under his breath.

A slight detour into Harrisburg drew a rust-colored Ford Escort that had been following them for about two and a half hours from Greensburg.

Four hours later, Dean smirked and shook his canteen of holy water. Fucking demon. Fucking demon stalker. Admittedly,  _that_  was a little unexpected, but Dean wasn't complaining. Eastern State was important by his brother's estimation, but it was likely not connected to the bigger picture. The hot little number who followed them into the empty warehouse was a lot more promising to the whole Yellow Eyes thing by Dean's standards, and all it took was a devil trap on the ceiling.

They never looked up. Seriously. It was a condition of being a demon, apparently. Dean might have spared some moment of sheepishness for not taking Sam's paranoia seriously just before they met with Amber's mom, but it was frankly overshadowed by a sick kind of glee.

Time for some answers.

"Man, you are one dumb bitch. How'd you end up pulling the short stick? Last in your class at demon school? Maybe a dropout?"

"Fuck you."

"An  _Escort_? Seriously? Not exactly 'hell on wheels.'"

"Says the guy who drives a  _black Impala_  that can be tailed four miles away."

She tilted her head and blond curls fell forward. Red-painted lips smiled up at him dripping with seduction despite the fact that her pretty ass was tied to a wooden chair and she was still smoking from her first dose of holy water.

Damn, yeah. He just loved breaking these low-level smart-ass bastards.

Dean grinned. "You think we're  _hiding_  from you black-eyed bitches?" Dean raised his arms and turned, encompassing the wide open space. "Welcome to our Q and A session. Sammy, tell the lady what's she's won."

But Sam was all business.

"Why are you following us?" he demanded and, yes, that Game Face was definitely improving. He had the height, he had the means, and he had the motive. No "good cop/bad cop" for these things anymore. Nope. Just All Bad Cop all the time.

"There's no law against keeping tabs on a guy, is there? Just making sure that an investment can live to get his chance at the Big Time, that's all. You've got me pegged all wrong, Sam."

The demon bitch kicked off her black heel and tried to sweet talk his brother, tried to snake a foot up his leg.

Sam stepped back and narrowed his eyes. "So, you  _do_ work for him. For Yellow Eyes."

She pouted up at him. "You know, if you spend all your time asking questions you already know the answer to, we'll get bored."

"Oh, man, we can't let that happen, can we Sammy?" Dean smiled broadly and hit his brother in the chest with the back of the canteen. "I mean, we need to show the  _lady_ a good time." He shook the bottle at her and the demon screamed shortly. "So, are we having fun yet?"

When he turned to his little brother the glee evaporated.

Sam's jaw was set. His expression was like the first hour after Jess died: Cold, empty, ready to take something apart with clinical efficiency, but so  _lost_.

Dean turned to their captive. When he tilted his head down to look at her, all of the levity of the situation was gone.

"What's this 'big time' you're talkin' about? What is Yellow Eyes' plan? Let's hear all about that. I've got gallons of this stuff and it just sits around in my car."

"It doesn't matter. We can have a wet T-shirt contest if you want, but I can't spoil the big finale. And it's above my pay grade anyway. My job is to keep precious Sammy baby all alive and well until the final act because he's 'daddy's favorite.'" She tipped her head. "We're on the same side, 'big brother.' Surprised?"

Dean streaked her with holy water and let her scream that out. Angry welts rose to mar that pretty face she had stolen from some other poor girl.

"Lady, you may be a lot of things, but you're not on  _my_ side. The only one on my side is me, and I'm territorial. And I can manage without a demon's help, thank you very much."

"Unnnng." She lifted her face to Dean and then to Sam, clearly in pain. "Oh really? You don't know how many 'wanted' lists he's on now. It's hard work Bringing Up Baby, and you're just letting him out of the playpen whenever he makes a cute face. Admit it."

Dean's jaw twitched. "He is an adorable little tadpole, isn't he?"

"Adorable, tasty, whatever works for you. Keep digging up the past and he'll find what he's looking for. You sure you want  _that_ , 'Big Brother?'"

Sam's expression broke. He met Dean's eyes as if he'd just been  _caught_ at something,  _dammit_ , and then his fists clenched. "I've heard enough," he said, pulling a sheet of paper from his back pocket. The exorcism ritual.

"Really?  _Really_? You want to send me off now? I  _know_ what's after Sam.  _You're_ clueless, 'Big Brother.' Hello, best interests?" She tossed off the bravado and fairly pleaded her case directly at Dean who was squeezing and releasing the holy water bottle in indecision.

"Wait, Sam."

Sam gestured to her. "Don't listen to her, Dean. She's clearly trying to manipulate  _you_. Anything from this point is just a diversion, a bargain-she's not gonna tell us anything about Yellow Eyes, and  _that's_  the only reason she's still here." Sam opened the paper and began to read. " _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus-"_

"I said,  _wait,_ Sam." Dean's voice was harsh in his own ears. It was out of character for his brother to be so willing to lose this chip, and  _that_ was what was worrying about this.

Amber's mom had just exposed the possible psychic link with the boogeyman, and Yellow Eyes was connected with psychic kids. If Sam didn't want Dean to see how two and two equaled four, then there was going to be a problem.

He ignored the look on Sam's face and got back to it.

"Now, what the hell are you talkin' about? And better make it quick because we're on a short fuse and a tight schedule of our own."

"You mean like tracking down the 'boogeyman?' Like  _that_  tight schedule?"

Sam closed the paper, clenched his jaw, and took a step closer. "What do you know about that?"

Velvet red victory smile. Man, Dean wanted to punch this bitch.

"On the menu next to 'filet mignon' is a picture of your cute little face, Sam. That's what I know. You're like fine French cuisine to that freaky monster."

"Why?"

"Why? You know why. You practically project 'come eat me! I've been raised on nothing but fine grain and beer and my muscles have been massaged since birth' to anything supernatural with a taste for the human psyche. Because it's true-you've been fed the good stuff, Sam."

"Okay, whoa. What the hell are you talkin' about?" Dean felt something ominous on the horizon, and like the sun, he didn't want to look this full in the face either.

"Oh,  _Sam_ 'll find out about  _that_  soon enough, I promise. Do you think you deserve a front-row seat, Dean-O? Please. Only special babies get the special treatment. You're nothing but Plan A to keep little brother alive until his big debut, and you're failing."

There was no way.  _No way_  he was failing. Failing meant Sammy died or worse. Failing meant watching his brother disappear into a freaky, shiny-eyed void. Failing meant that he couldn't  _stop_  whatever had started-that  _thing_ Dad had worried about. Failing meant having to go down  _that_ road...

" _When the time comes, you'll know it's too late, and then the only way to save him is to kill him. To kill Sammy. Remember that, son."_

Her jaw cracking felt kind of good. Solid. Punchable and vulnerable. And he was going to  _kill_  this cow...

"Dean."

Dean ignored Sam. He picked up the first bucket and overturned the entire thing over her head. The whole fucking thing.

" _Dean!_ "

The demon's hoarse screams reached the rafters. They reverberated off the walls. Dean was calm as he waited, patiently. Yeah, he was patient. He could do this all fucking day. Maybe he  _was_  done talking. Maybe now it was just time for the hurting.

Yeah. He could live with that.

"So, Yellow Eyes isn't working with the boogeyman thing at all." It was a statement, and Sam was speaking fast because he probably sensed talky-time was over.

She was having a hard time responding. Her cheeks were two sizes too big now, and all puffy and red and man it probably hurt just to take a breath. Sucked to be her.

"Not...not working together, you idiot. But boy, I wish they were because you're so eager to jump into that thing's lap. Aren't you...aren't you listening to what I'm saying? Before you can be a big fish you have to be a really tasty little fish. And tasty little fish like you are so hard to keep alive in the big bad ocean of everything you blind humans don't know. And your fucking father brought you  _right_ to him. To the boogeyman, you'd be worth bumping to the top of the list. All of you tasty little fish. The boogeyman  _eats_  clever little proteges like you, sweet, delicious Sam. Sad face for my boss. "

Sam's color turned to sidewalk cement.

"Your brother gets a gold star for saving you once, but he won't get the medal until after your birthday. Just gotta make it to one more, Sam. Just one more."

_Just one more..._

_Fuck, Sammy._

Sam picked up the thread. "How...how do I kill it?"

"What?"

She wasn't very pretty anymore, and her stupid "what" face was going to require another bucket of holy water, Dean just knew it.

"The...the boogeyman," Sam was insistent. "How do I kill it?"

The demon shook her head like he was crazy.

"How the fuck should I know? It's the  _boogeyman_ , retard. It's been preying on humanity for as long as humanity has been crawling. Primordial evil with mind powers. You let it get inside your head once, Sammy, that's all it took. You're like a  _Dick and Jane_  primer to it now. Don't you remember having tea and crumpets with it for two weeks when you were 'out of bounds' to the rest of the world?"

Dean froze.

 _Shit_.  _Shit, I fucking knew it!_

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sam look at him.

They were both so totally compromised now. Sam's eyebrows were drawn together and the desperation for answers leaked through his voice.

"How do you know about that?  _What_ do you know about it?"

"What does it matter? Ancient history, but you better let it go if you want to live in the here and now. Stay the fuck out of it. Leave it alone."

"I thought...I thought it only went after psychic  _children_ ," Sam pushed.

"I don't have a Ph.D in boogeyman psychology. I'm not narrating a monster documentary here. All I know is what I was told. That it wants _you_ , Sam, and that if you go looking for it, it might find you. Stay out of Osseo, Sam Winchester. It's the difference between being at the top of the food chain or at the bottom."

She had nothing but ominous warnings. In ten more minutes it was clear she was the gruntiest grunt at the bottom of the totem pole with nothing useful to give except, obviously, a boogeyman warning from a fucking Yellow Eyed demon.

Dean wasn't satisfied until he had used every gallon of holy water he had. Sam read the exorcism as fast as he could, but there was no getting around the pain. For any of them. And when her stupid demon ass liquefied into noxious smoke and was banished back to hell to give a nice, tidy little report, Dean threw an empty container at a nearby wall.

"Dean." Sam's hand was on his shoulder. "It's over."

Dean laughed. God, man,  _that_  was funny.

"Oh, it ain't over, Sammy. It's just begun."

He didn't have to preach to the choir; he could see his brother was pretty unnerved.

"We need to get some...some talismans or something to shake these demons off our trail." Sam's face was a mess of emotion, but there was a conviction rising behind it.

 _And why is that, Sammy? Because you're gonna keep digging no matter what they say? No matter what_ I  _say?_

"I say let them all come. If every demon is dead, then that's  _one_  problem down."

"Yeah, except for the fact that, without the Colt, we haven't had much success figuring out how to actually  _kill_  a demon."

"Or a boogeyman, Sam. Or that."

Sam swallowed. He saw it distinctly. Maybe the bitch had been lying about everything, but time rewound in Dean's mind and he remembered a little brother in a bed in the dark staring at the ceiling saying, _"No. I hate it. You're too cold. It's cold."_

 _Fuck, Sammy._  Two weeks in his head with the boogeyman, and then Sam came back, but he  _had_  come back changed...

Dean felt cold. Sam hadn't remembered anything about those two weeks. Nothing. As far as Dean knew, he still didn't.

_As far as he knew._

"Sam, you were ten... _two weeks_ , Sam."

"She didn't have to be telling the truth about  _anything_."

Dean grabbed the front of his coat, "You said you didn't  _remember_  anything."

"I didn't!  _I don't,"_   Sam retorted, pulling himself free. "Dean, I swear."

Earnest voice, yeah. Dean put a hand over his mouth, the other on his hip. He turned around because Sam shouldn't see him thinking about tying him down in the Impala and waiting this whole fucking thing out.

" _One more birthday..."_

Fuck. Fuck!

"Dean, this...this paranoia is just what they want. Let's get to Philadelphia, do some good," Sam pleaded.

_You're birthday is in less than one fucking month, Sammy._

"Ash has his feelers out for the demon signs, Dean. Bobby is looking too."

Dean wheeled back to him. "And  _you're_ still on the boogeyman trail, right?"

"We're getting nowhere staying  _here_." His little brother looked over at the unconscious young lady in the chair. "Let's get her out of here and drop her off at a hospital."

"Yeah, nothing to say to that, I see." Dean stalked away to get the car and his mood was murderous.

(To be continued...)

* * *

p.s. These are cannon vampires, but technically, in cannon, they aren't introduced until near the end of season 1. Go with it, please, and trust me.


	12. "Unnamed Feeling"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam's drunk, Dean's afflicted by it...and what's that in the closet? Answers lead to more questions and once upon a time, Sam was alone in his head with a boogeyman for two weeks. And it knows things now. It knows everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I do so love Drunk!Sam.
> 
> Anyway.  
> HAPPY HALLOWEEN
> 
> So so so so sorry for long time no update. School. It's a bitch, am I right? Thanks for hanging in. Sometimes it's nice to go back in time to simpler things...even when they're totally...complicated. Er...You know. Like season 2 Sam and Dean.
> 
> Once again, thanks to beta reader/muse/SamtomyDean Agelade who writes season 9 AU fanfic, a little thing called "Lustra," (currently in episode 5) and you should go read it because everything I can do, she can do better. She can do everything better than me.
> 
> -Caladria
> 
> p.s. Anyone who wants to write out the whole Eastern State case can feel free to do so.
> 
> p.p.s. The boogeyman scares me...

 

 

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

 

**April 8, 2007**

**Dean 28**

**Sam 23**

You don't just go to a job and forget that your brother is being head-hunted by a demon and is actively trying to track down the boogeyman. No. And yet, in retrospect, Dean would have to hand it to his brother: he sure knew how to pick distracting jobs-weird, deadly, and totally absorbing.

And painful. Extremely painful.

Timeline of Dean's fantastic weekend so far:

Friday - Sam's plan to drive across Pennsylvania to deal with a trio of dead ghostchasers at Eastern State Penitentiary led to-

Sam manipulating Dean into stopping along the way in some place called Greensburg to talk to Amber's mom to learn that her kid was, apparently, psychic (not happy coincidence) led to-

Friday evening having to detour three hours in Harrisburg to deal with a demon stalker bitch and a revelation that, apparently, Yellow Eyes and the boogeyman were in  _competition_  for his psychic little brother which led to-

An exciting little Friday night in Philly of Sam being slammed into a wall, a floor, and a radiator when Dean wasn't having fun flying into everything else. Ever try to get a name or an inmate number from a ghost who wants to kill the world? Not easy.

Their investigation paid off: two bodies and two names were narrowed down as suspects, leading to a laboriously painful salt and burn in a crappy cemetery. Sam insisted on Saturday night for a walk through (or more accurately, "limp" through) "just to be sure" because the guy had apparently bled all over his cell when he was jumped by three inmates and a guard. But something like that would have been scrubbed, right? Cleaned up? No little pieces of a homicidal maniac could be left after a  _renovation_ , right? Waste of time, right?

Wrong.

Sometimes Dean hated Sam's attention to detail.

Round two with Mr. Anger Management was what necessitated a redecoration of cell 698. With a can of gasoline and another perfectly good lighter.

Seemed like they were always running from burning buildings.

But hey, whatever. The fire was contained. The place was fixable. And it would eventually be reopened because this was America, and every American deserved the right to be amateurs and pad through miles of potentially lethal supernatural activity for the chance to catch a crappy EVP.

Philadelphia was safely in the rearview mirror before Dean considered stopping, even though Sam was still bleeding through bandages. The kid was always trying to keep stride, trying to push through the pain, and he was just a massive walking blood bag with millions of feet of surface area that gathered cuts and bruises.

* * *

Dean pushed through the motel door with a bag of supplies, takeout from Biggerson's, and half a Payday in his mouth. His shoulder still ached from the cement. As in, the cement floor a seriously hulked out vengeful Eastern State spirit with an incriminating left-legged limp had thrown him against in an effort to kill him.

To be fair, Dean hadn't thought about demons or the boogeyman once in at least 24 hours.

He set the bag down and started to pull things out while he ripped off another chunk of peanutty goodness. "Tylenol, Ibuprofin..." he shook the medicine bottle and fished out a fresh roll of bandages. "A cocktail of these and anything that still hurts just proves your bitch status, Sam."

"Rabbits."

Dean stopped chewing. "What?"

"Cute little...fluffy rabbits. Small...small rodents. Mammals..."

Dean turned around. Sam was sitting on the side of his bed, unsteady. Clearly drunk. So very, very drunk. What the hell? Dean had been gone an hour, tops.

_Awesome._

"Dude, what the hell are you babbling about?" Dean swallowed his concern-and the rest of his candybar-and eyed a familiar liquor bottle on Sam's bedside stand. And then he did a doubletake, crossed the room, and picked it up.

Old Grand-Dad bourbon whiskey. Specifically, their father's brand and specifically the sight and smell that had always put Sam on edge. He never liked dad's drinking. He never liked Dean's drinking. Sam didn't usually drink seriously himself, and when he did it was when he was low.  _Really_  low. And yet, even in those handful of moments when it got him to the point of picking up a bottle, it would  _never_ have been this one.

And it was already three fourths gone. What the hell? Not good.

"Sam, what is  _this_?"

"W...whiskey, dumbass ."

Dean rolled his eyes. "I mean, where'd you get it?"

"The Tooth Fairy."

"Jesus, Sammy. Couldn't just wait for the pain pills?"

Sam made an exaggerated act of blowing out a laugh with enough accelerant to burn down the building. "Because  _that_ will make it all go away."

Dean leaned down to touch the bandage on Sam's head. Yeah, he had taken a pretty good crack from their Eastern State adversary. Maybe it was worse than Dean thought.

"Dean...answer...answer the question."

"Oh, excuse me, Drunky McDrunkerson, I didn't hear the question. "

Sam snatched the bottle of whiskey from his hand with a speed and dexterity that momentary belied his pathetically wobbly exterior. "Do I look like a rabbit t'you?"

"Dude, what?"

"Bottom of the food chain..." Sam waggled his fingers along an imaginary ground and managed to get another swig of whiskey before Dean could seize it and wrench it out of his grip.

"Rabbits and little mammals...you never watched  _Nova_  with me," Sam complained petulantly. "Or grass. That's the lowest. Grass. Everything eats grass. Am I...Am I grass? What use is grass, really?"

"If you'd ever have smoked it, you'd know."

"Stupid."

"What?"

"Drugs. Drugs're dumb."

"What are you, a friggin' poster child now? Jesus. We'll put you up in a middle school gymnasium tomorrow. Promise. Turn off the PSA and go to sleep," Dean tried.

"No. Don' wanna. Talk to me, Dean."

_Aw fuck, Sammy._

Dean pulled the bottle behind him before Sam could snatch it back.

"You have exactly 30 seconds before you either puke or pass out. Your dime."

Sam said nothing for too long. He fixed Dean with eyes that were glazed with tears and some kind of dump truck of unspoken things threatening on the precipice. There was that fucking look of total  _resignation_  again, as if Dean already had the barrel to his forehead.

Dean had to, yes, seriously,  _will_ himself not to finish the rest of this bottle himself, because, yes, Sam was going there. His only hope was that his little brother would pass out before he  _really_  started. The last time this had happened, in that old hotel with the ghost girl and the people Sam couldn't save, he had managed to exact a promise that Dean would shoot him if he got out of control, if he turned into the monster his father had foreseen. Dean regretted that night.

_Awesome._

The sentiment bore repeating.

"You know...you know how easy...it's easy to cut the grass...burn it...get rid of it."

Still with the grass?

"God, dude, how can you be metaphorical when you're this drunk? Thirty seconds are up-time for bed." Dean put the bottle far out of Sam's reach and then bent down to take him by the shoulders (Carefully. Sam had bandages there too) and tried to tilt him so he would lay down.

Sam was a mess-a boneless, floppy mess-and then he captured Dean's arms with sudden urgency.

"Dad knew, Dean...he knew it."

_Shit._

"Sam, you're not thinkin' right. God, why do you even start? You suck at drinking."

"Dean...Dean he brought me to Osseo. He knew about the boogeyman. He wanted to take me there and...and he wanted to... he wanted to let that monster take care of it. Didn't he? That's why..."

Dean's stomach lurched. That fucking bitch demon whore and all the shit.  _All the shit_. Sam had warned him about her getting inside Dean's head. Three guesses where it was really lodged, and the first two didn't count.

"Sam, d'you know how much of a babbling idiot you sound like right now? Nothing more than light beer for you from now on."

Sam's eyes spilled over and, Jesus, just no regard for the fact that he was a boy, and boys don't do this. Boys don't weep. Dad didn't weep. Dad always ended the tears because boys didn't break.

Dean winced.

 _Fuck you, Dad_  because this wasn't about Sam breaking down, this was about Sam's tears always breaking Dean down, and one of them had to be sober and level and say he wasn't going to  _shoot anybody_ ,  _dammit._

"He...he hated me, Dean. Because this thing. Because of...things," Sam's voice was slurry. "Because of mom...because I'm  _bad_. I'm bad, Dean."

Okay, that was enough. Too much. This from the kid who splinted hurt baby bird wings with the latex gloves they kept in the med kits so  _"I won't get my smell on it. So the mama bird will take it back."_

Fuck.

"Sam, you're not bad. You're a friggin' saint. Trust me." Dean sighed and pushed against him, but Sam was summoning up Drunk Strength to resist.

Sam shook his head. "No...I'm bad. Dad knew. He had a chance...and then...when I was gone it would have been my fault too. Because I wasn't strong and should just get eaten." Sam laughed against the tears on his cheeks, against the soul-crushing devastation peeling him through.

"Sam," Dean grabbed his shirt front, not careful anymore because, what the hell, Sam wasn't feeling that kind of pain anyway at the moment. "You're drunk, okay? This is Dad's whiskey talkin', and none of it's real. Do you understand me?"

Sam wobbled his head in a vague facsimile of a head shake. "You think...you think I didn't figure it out...when I was sober?"

Dean's eyebrows twitched.

"Why couldn't it make sense, huh? It did. It does. It does. That's why...Dad..." Sam looked past his brother, reached out pathetically for the bottle.

What was he trying to do? Immerse himself in his guilt about their father, his guilt about his life, his guilt about his shortcomings, and just literally drown in that familiar smell, that poison, to understand the truth? Is this what Sam had been driven to? Not the books, not the computer, not his intellect, but the exact same process every other fucked up Winchester male he knew had handled their problems with reality?

Not on his watch.

Dean grabbed Sam's hand and forced their eyes to meet.

"You listen to me, you friggin' idiot. If Dad was here right now, I'd punch him in the face."

That seemed to get Sam's attention.

"I'd punch him in the face, I swear to you, Sammy, because we didn't deserve it. But he's gone now and it's just me, okay? It's just me. I'm the one here, and right now you need to knock this crap off because I am doin' my damndest to keep you safe.  _I'm_  the one working and  _you_ are chasing ghosts, and if you don't look where you're headed, you're gonna become one."

Sam blinked. He swallowed. He was listening with his whole heart laid open and bare on his alcohol-drenched sleeve and the tears spilled over again and all Dean wanted was to  _make the kid stop_.

"...And if you do that, so help me Sam, I don't know what I'll do. So, pull your head out of your ass." Dean's heart was pounding and his eyes were hard.

"Dean..."

"Why do you make me say that crap? You're seriously a pain, little brother."

Sam's eyes were carved out by eyebrows that did something to make him look ten again. And it wasn't right or healthy and maybe  _this_ was why it was bad when Sam drank himself filterless. Sam's gaze hovered over his brother's face, searching for truth. He hesitantly tugged at Dean's shirt front, an impossible expression of relief and gratitude finally smearing his face.

"Dean, man, I love you. Sorry...m'sorry."

"Yeah, yeah." This time it was easy to push Sam back onto the bed. "You'll be pretty damn sorry in the morning when I'm describing breakfast and you're puking your throat raw."

"I mean it..." Sam's hand fell to his brother's shirttail when Dean turned to pull a blanket half up his brother's huge body.

"Dean...you saved me that night."

Dean frowned. Sam caught it.

"I mean it, okay? I was...was scared. It wasn't your fault. You were...so...so cool, man." Sam's voice was thick, wobbling, but heart-piercingly earnest.

Dean swallowed and sighed. So, there he was. Deep down, somewhere inside where only torrents of alcohol could reach, the little brother he knew was still clinging to life.

.. _.Or just dying slowly._

"Go to sleep, Sammy." He examined his brother's shoulder bandage and sighed. "Gotta wake your massive body up in about four hours to change this."

Sam nodded compliantly.

"Will you...will you watch it again?"

"Watch what?"

Sam turned his head.

The closet.

Yeah.

"Yeah, Sammy. Nothin' will come get you. Just stop talkin' and sleep." Dean extricated his shirt from Sam's grip reluctantly and sat heavily on his own bed. By the time he could look at his brother's face again, Sam was asleep.

It was going to be a long night.

* * *

Dean shivered awake. He had dozed off, but the cold had woken him up.

The cold?

Light from outside illuminated a cloud of frosty breath, and that was when he saw it. The open closet door-the little girl in a pink night gown, shimmering, edges shaking, approaching Sam's bed.

Dean's eyes went wide. He should have taken Sam more seriously about the closet watching, even for being crazy drunk. Even for it being over a decade ago. He should have just  _known_.

"M'sorry..." Sam was mumbling. Dean edged out of his bed slowly, every muscle tensed, staring at the ghost as his brain tried to calculate what he had in the motel, right now, that was going to...going to...

Salt. Always carry around an ass-ton of salt. If not for ghosts, then for shitty townie takeout food...

And then he saw Sam's face. And Sam was awake. His eyes were open. Or maybe he wasn't awake? Maybe he was  _gone_  again-lost inside the way he was back then.

Dean darted for his duffle and shoved down the paralyzing fear. It was a ghost and Dean knew how to deal with a freaking ghost. It was in here, the brown leather bag. Shit  _shit_.

"Amber...Where are you? Where are you now?"

It was a whisper. Sam was talking.

"Just remember to call me, Sam. Sam..."

 _God...that voice._ Horror movies couldn't capture the nuance of it, the resonance of it. Every hair on the back of Dean's neck stood on end like it was their job. He saw her face-way too young, way too kind, way too...reaching for his brother, saying fucked up  _freaky_  shit...

He grabbed the bag by the bottom and sprayed its contents as hard and as accurately at that apparition as he could. She looked up at him, at Dean, and she wasn't angry...and then she was gone.

Sam was crawling backward and up the headboard, a muffled exhalation of surprise and half-drunk fear christening the early morning air.

"Sammy!" Dean grabbed him, looked him in the eyes,  _searched_  for him...

"Dean...she...she was a ghost. That was...you  _saw_  her?" His little brother was clearly surprised. Very surprised. Surprised and aware.  _Still here_. Not blank.  _Sam_  eyes all wide and confused.  _Thank you, God._

"What? Yes, God, Sam, is  _that_  what you've been seeing at night? That wasn't a  _dream,_ Sam. That was a straight up haunting! That little girl is  _gaslighting_  you! She's gonna drive you to... _shit."_

Dean noticed the blood seeping through his brother's bandages, and Sam looked so shocked, so  _stricken_. He smacked his brother's face lightly. "Hey, Einstein, are you with me here at all or are you in drunk land?"

"No. I'm...I'm here I just..."

Dean took a deep breath and blew it out, letting the terror of the moment go with it as he turned on the bedside lamp.

Sam's voice was not fearful-it was full of actual, bonafide  _wonder._ "That can't be possible. If that was her ghost...it's been  _following_  us."

Dean had gone to the bag to get the bandages and then stopped shortly at that.

"Following you."

Silence.

He turned around. "Sam, if it's following you, then you know what that means."

His brother's face was so sad.  _Goddammit_.

"Where is it?"

"No."

"Dammit, Sam. She's hanging onto something of hers that you have. You need to get rid of it now. What about this isn't clear?" Seriously, this kid. How long had they been doing these kinds of jobs? They just  _left_  one, for Christ's sake. He should have thrown that thing away a long time ago.

"No, Dean. It's not what you think."

Dean allowed himself that exaggerated expression of disbelief.

"Are you  _listening_  to yourself right now?"

Sam scanned the floor while he thought. He was putting something together. Obviously putting something together  _wrong_  because  _no, Sam. Bad. Danger!_

"Yes, and I'm telling you, she hasn't hurt me, Dean. She's not vengeful. I think...I think she's trying to...to tell me something. I think she...I think she needs me."

Dean pressed both hands to his face and wiped it, "Holy crap. Listen to yourself. You can't be objective about this, Sam. She has you all twisted up. Whatever sense you had is just gone now, out the door, but I'll be  _damned_ if I sit by and watch you commit this kind of suicide."

Dean picked up Sam's duffle and began to root in it. Where the hell was the cursed little black and red thing?

Sam sighed. "You won't find it."

"Wanna bet me?"

"Sure. But before you really get started, could you toss me the bandages? I've got, like, two of these T-shirts left, and I'd like to keep something clean."

Sam held his hand out. His face was impassive, sober, committed.

Dean put his palm to his forehead.

"You don't know what the hell you're doing."

"I don't have the whole picture, not yet, but I'm putting the map together. I get it. I get what this looks like, but you aren't where I am."

"Sammy, if I was where you are, a whole lot of shit would be goin' differently." He was angry, yes, and his brother hadn't learned a damn thing and it was time he knew that.

Sam's face fell. "Yeah, it would. Look, that wasn't what I expected, her...ghost-" Only his eyes looked up at Dean, "-but I think it's important. Think about it, Dean. She was  _taken away_ , and part of the problem is that we don't know  _where_  that is. We don't know how the boogeyman gets around, where it comes from."

Dean closed his eyes, his jaw worked. "If she's a  _ghost_ , then she's  _dead_ , Sam. She's not anywhere waiting for a phonecall."

And all at once, the resounding silence sent a wave of adrenaline to Dean's stomach. The jittery feeling was his body letting him know he'd hit Sam's nerve. And that was what it always was. Dean could speak plain to any human on the planet without repercussion, but Sam?

Problem was that the warning was always too late. Or when it wouldn't matter because shit  _had_ to be said. Like now.

"I know."

Sam looked him square. He nodded. His lips formed a thin line.

"Her body was gone, but her spirit must have come from somewhere. It's not like that hair tie has been out of my possession for 14 years, so why now? Why come to me now? Something must have triggered it. This isn't a usual haunting."

"So, what, you're just gonna let yourself be haunted until...until.. _hell_  no." Dean felt the blood in his veins burning him up from inside.

Sam sighed and licked his bottom lip as he stared at the closet.

"Dean, I'll take care of it. Please, just...give me the bandages."

There was no way in hell  _this_  conversation was over...

* * *

It wasn't over.

Neither of them got anymore sleep, and the disagreement nearly turned into a full-on fist fight by noon. It likely would have, had both of them not been so beat up and exhausted from two nights of ghost hunting earlier, and if Sam hadn't been so hungover and vomiting every half an hour. There was a lull between two and three pm when they helped change each other's bandages. But by 7pm a lamp was broken, and after the manager pounded on their door to tell them that he was going to call the cops if they didn't shut the hell up, Dean left. He left to clear his head, to get a drink in a dive somewhere and get into a nice, understandable bar brawl with a stranger, who, yes, was a specimen of large, hairy, drunk stupidity.

When he jumped into the Impala to get out before the cops showed, Dean thought about Sam. Stupid. Freaking. Sam. Running towards unknown monsters, hung up over a girl he knew for, what, two days? And yeah,  _yes_  there was something sinister there interfering with Sam dealing with it, but shouldn't that mean that she, and all of it, were trouble? What about that didn't he get? This whole "facing it and finishing it for good" crap that Sam had been rambling on and on about was a load of idealistic garbage. Dad didn't expect him to finish it because Dad was dead. Dad was  _dead_  and who the hell cared what he was thinking when he brought them to Osseo, what he was thinking when he told Sam to shoot him with the Colt all those years later, what he was thinking when he spent his last minutes on earth telling Dean he might have to kill that once-clingy little brother?

By the time Dean got back to the motel around midnight, he was working himself up for round ten with his inexplicably stubborn brother. He opened the door, ready to just  _say_  all of that, and more, when reality stabbed him in the gut.

Sam was gone.

Fuck.  _Fuck!_

His bed was made, the lamp was cleaned up, everything that had been tossed about during their arguments was exactly the way it would be if a freaking maid who was  _paid_  to clean the room had been in. Except Dean's stuff was right where he left it.

"Sam."

Holy shit. He had done it. And now Sam was...was out there, taking on this crap alone with a ghost and a boogeyman and psychic visions and demons with plans.

"Sam!"

_Check with the hotel manager. Call his damn phone. Beg that he answers. Beg!_

"What?"

Dean whipped around. Sam stood innocently behind him, a bucket of ice in his hand.

"Sonovabitch," Dean breathed. And then, yes, before thinking he punched Sam square in the jaw, just managing to pull it slightly at the last minute. Ice fell all over the ground, and the plastic container skittered into the parking lot.

"Ow! What the hell, Dean!" Sam staggered back, grabbing at his face in dismay. But he didn't have much time to react because Dean was hugging him. Hard.

"You stupid son of a bitch."

Sam half laughed the way one would do nervously at the antics of a lovable crazy person, but his whole body was tense, as if expecting more pain. Dean let him go, somewhat ashamed by the realization, then promptly grabbed his brother's shirt front and pulled him into the room, closing the door.

"You thought I left?"

"It's..." Dean waved at the room.

"What, because I cleaned up I obviously left? I just went to get ice for the bruises."

"Yeah, well, add one to the list and stop being a bitch." Dean swallowed, tried to make himself feel calm.

"I will, when you stop being a jerk," Sam threw a bag with the last of the ice in it at Dean who caught it. Sam pointed to his left eye and then to Dean's which was starting to blacken from that fight with "Hairy" earlier. "You should stop taking your aggression out on random people, Dean. It's not healthy."

Good old Sammy. Always worried about the well-being of people he had never met-would never meet.

"He'll live," Dean muttered.

"Dude, I mean not healthy for  _you_."

Oh.

"Thanks, but if anyone needs some kind of psychobabble analysis, it's you."

"Dean." His name was a capitulation and the reason was obvious: Sam was tired. They both were. Somehow the brat still managed a weak smile. "Did you at least make a friend?"

He didn't want to fight anymore either. Dean mentally counted-this was at least the third time Sam had tried to end this relentless battle with neither side gaining ground, and Dean had refused to let it go for  _obvious_  reasons here.

Still.

"Yeah. We're getting married next week. I've already signed you up to be the flower girl." Dean touched the ice to his eye as a show of good faith. Sam hadn't left, and this would acknowledge that. For now. Just for now. He shrugged off his coat and lay back on the bed, ice to his face.

"Sorry for asking, but I gotta know. Who's wearing the dress?" Sam drawled as he sat down on the edge of his own bed.

"Not me, that's for damn sure. I haven't shaved."

Sam raised both eyebrows.

"Shut up. I punch brothers for awkward moments."

Ironically, Sam flashed one of those real smiles-the one with teeth and crinkles at the corner of his lips.

"Yeah. I noticed." Sam took a deep breath, glanced at the sunset-orange carpet, and then back to Dean. The smile was gone like that .

"She won't come again."

Dean peered at him. Narrowed his eyes.

"What d'you mean? Did you burn it?"

Sam pursed his lips. "Something close enough. It's sealed. I called Bobby."

It sounded suspicious, but there was a resignation to Sam's eyes that suggested he had said some kind of farewell. Maybe. Or maybe not. Dean didn't have any proof that Sam was telling the truth and he didn't like it.

"Are you bullshitting me?"

"No. But I can't throw away pieces of the puzzle when I'm still looking for the big picture. It's sealed. Ask Bobby if you don't believe me."

Dean sat up. He searched his brother's face, but the little boy who didn't lie was very far away. This Sam could hold things back-he seemed to have an infinite capacity for that.

"Let me see it."

Sam shook his head again. "You have to just trust me."

"Then trust  _me_ and let me see it. If it's like you said, I won't do anything to it, I swear."

Sam's jaw moved. He fixed his eyes on something in the distance before saying quietly, "I trust you, Dean. I trust you to always do whatever  _you_  think is best. That's how you prioritize. That's why you got into bed that night and kept the boogeyman at bay."

So, that was what this was all about. Of course Sam knew he'd chuck that damn thing into the fire the first chance he got, take the consequences from Sam's sad face, if it would keep his brother fucking  _safe_  from this bullshit.

Like he could read minds, Sam continued. "I get it. Okay? I get it. But I can't sacrifice this. I'm trying my damndest to compromise so we can both sleep. Can we sleep tonight?"

 _And here we are again, Sammy. The place where I'm the_ good  _brother and you tie that noose right in front of my goddamn face...or you'll do it someplace I may never find you._

"You swear to me, no more ghost of Christmas Past?" Dean pushed. He said it like he was compromising, but he was mentally going through every place Sam might have stashed it. Already thinking of ways to separate Sam from his stuff because  _come on, Sam_.

Sam shrugged his shoulders. "I sealed the only thing of hers I have. If she comes back, then it's something else we haven't accounted for, and I can't be responsible for things I don't know."

"Sammy, the list of crap we don't know is getting longer, not shorter," Dean warned.

"I'm aware of that." Sam turned and laid down heavily. "You're right. If the situation were reversed, I'd be just as pissed as you are." He let his eyes drift shut.

Dean closed his eyes and then opened them again.

"Sam, you had a  _dream_  confused with a  _haunting_..."

If he did.  _If_  he had...

"Dean, you've said it a hundred times..."

"Okay, this is time 101. If you  _keep_  that thing..."

" _Please_...please...just..." Sam's eyebrows furrowed. The plea sounded like it was taking the last breath of his body.

Dean's jaw clenched.

Sam yawned, turned slightly.

"Yeah. 'Night, Sam."

A low mumble that sounded grateful,  _dammit_.

When the dark of the room began to color to a deep grey signalling the dawn, when no unearthly guest had appeared to stalk his brother in the night, Dean finally allowed himself to fall asleep too.

* * *

 _Damn, Dean loved to sleep in. He loved it-waking up on a Saturday whenever, and Sammy being a good kid and watching cartoons, and sugar cereal. The bottomless bowl of sugar cereal in Dad's mess kit._ The Real Ghostbusters _and_ Scooby Doo _were Dean's favorites, and Sam appreciated watching those Care Bears do the Care Bear Stare because he was, like, three, and a certain amount of wussiness was allowed at that age. Oh man, that Tenderheart Bear, though. He was kind of a badass, not that Dean would admit it._

_Yeah. Tenderheart Bear knew the deal._

Dean woke up with a start. At some point Sam had thrown his jacket over him, a kind of olive branch. Dean's teeth felt fuzzy.

"You know, I envy you. I always have. I wish I could sleep like that."

The elder Winchester blinked up at Sam who watched him over a large paper cup of some coffee concoction and his laptop.

"What? What time is it?"

"Past checkout. I hit them for another night. Coffee?"

"Pee." Dean muttered and stumbled out of bed.

Forty-five minutes later Dean was clean and shaved, all bandages had been replaced, and the two brothers ordered a late lunch at the diner down the street. Dean was starving but he felt incredible somehow. Yeah, he was still aching from bruises, but he could live with bruises. Had  _always_  somehow lived with them. Amazing what some sleep could do, and there was pot roast and pie to look forward to. Hot damn, maybe today would be a good day. If only.

"Hey, how're you?" Dean asked nonchalantly as he put the glorious black liquid to his lips while his gaze checked Sam's color. The bandage on his forehead was noticeable, but it wasn't actively bleeding. Yeah, it was a decent day when no one was actively bleeding .

Sam nodded. "I'm...good, actually. Nothing woke me up, I swear."

"Mmhmm." Dean put his cup down. Sam didn't need to know that he already had confirmation.

"And I spent all morning doing research."

"Research on what?"

Oh.  _Oh._

Sam pulled out his notebook and stopped halfway. "If you don't want to know, say so now."

Dean realized he was making a face. Maybe he spoke too soon about the "decent day" thing.

"I want to know."

Sam nodded, and he was charged up with that kind of Sammy Researchy energy that seemed to come about from investigations that lead him somewhere. It was usually contagious, even if Dean never showed it. But this morning all it was doing was putting him on edge.

"So, I used what we know of the boogeyman's profile-his taste for psychic children, May 2nd, and Osseo, Wisconsin-and I searched the newspapers, police records, and medical records for the last 50 years."

"Medical records?" The hand on the coffee cup pointed a pinky at his brother's laptop. "You can get those on there?"

"Y-yeah. I mean, they aren't open to the public. Luckily for us, we're not the public." Sam's tone alone conveyed it:  _I had to do some illegal technical computery stuff. Just go with it._

"Right. Go on."

Sam nodded. "Luckily Osseo is a small town, so it didn't take long but...I think I've got something."

"What?"

"There are reported disappearances of kids under the age of 13 on May 2nd in 2000, 1993, 1986, 1979, 1972, 1965, and 1958." Sam's eyes glittered.

Dean looked at the ceiling and did a quick calculation.

"Every seven years."

"Exactly. And when I cross referenced the kids with online medical records, not only did their birthdays match, but there were indications that these kids were having issues." Sam flipped through his notebook, his green eyes scanning the page. "Here. Patrick Dulin, age 11, born May 2nd. When he was eight he fell into a frozen creek and was dead on the table for ten minutes before he could be revived. On April 28th, 2000 he was admitted to the hospital for 'fatigue' where he received fluids and medication and was released."

"Fatigue?"

"Yeah. Not sleeping? As in..."

Dean nodded, getting it. He remembered Sam two days before the boogeyman. He remembered every second of those days. "And on May 2nd he disappeared."

"Right."

"And that happened in 2000?"

"Yeah." Sam flipped the pages in his notebook. "There's something on almost all of these kids, at least as far back as the medical records have been kept online."

"Jesus. For a guy who has such specific, discriminating tastes, it sure gets fed. I mean, like you said, Osseo is a small town. The fact that there are all these psychic kids born on just the right day seems completely weird, doesn't it?"

Sam took a deep breath.

Uh oh.

"Yeah. About that."

Dean was suddenly on full alert.

"What? What about that, Sam?"

"You have to promise me you'll stay calm."

Dean narrowed his eyes. Whose idea was it to come to this public place for lunch? Oh yes. That would be Sam.

"I make no such promises. Tell me anyway."

"According to the medical records, after Patrick Dulin was revived from his near-death experience when he was 8 he told the doctors that he walked out onto the creek because there was another boy he didn't recognize urging him to go play."

"So?"

"So, just before he fell in, Patrick said the boy just...disappeared."

Dean blinked.

"Okay. Wow. That isn't...super creepy. So, you think...not a coincidence?"

"One other missing girl, Emily Jacobs in 1986, was brought back after, get this, a  _suicide attempt_  at age 10."

Dean made a face. "Isn't that a little young to..."

"That's how it was listed officially in the report, but her psych eval was a bit more involved. She said another girl told her to jump out of her second story window and that she could fly."

"What? Ten? Come on. At ten everyone knows they can't fl-"

"Yeah, but Emily said she  _saw this other girl do it_."

Dean stopped. "She saw a ghost too..."

"Seems like it. The rest of her medical history is...painful to read." Sam's face fell. "She was institutionalized in a private facility just outside of Osseo for two years and swore the entire time that she could hear the damned screaming in hell."

"Jesus. Poor kid." Dean didn't care much for people other than his surrogate family, but kids were a different story. Kids who had tough lives-he especially had a soft spot for them.

"And then?"

"And then, May 2nd, she disappeared. It was ruled an escape, but she fit the profile to a startling degree. When it comes to a psychic background before she vanished, she was the real deal." Sam closed his notebook and looked up at his brother as a matronly waitress set their meals in front of them.

"Nothing else like that on the others?"

Sam shook his head quickly and then shrugged. "It got harder after that. Not every kid had an accident in their childhood, and not every kid who had an accident necessarily experienced anything supernatural."

"So...what are you thinking here, Sam?"

His brother took a deep breath.

"I think you're right. For a small town, there were a lot of psychic kids born on May 2nd...and I don't think they were all born that way."

"You think the boogeyman somehow set things up to  _create_  psychic kids if there weren't any hanging around for chow time every seven years?" The case just got creepier and weirder.

"This is only what I found in four hours, but yeah. I think if I go deeper, that's what I'll find."

What the holy hell?

"If this thing is somehow setting kids up for ghost attacks, then we have some cases..."

"No, Dean, that's just it. There's not a single record of a child drowning in that creek or jumping out of a bedroom in the entire town. Not a single one. It's about the furthest thing from a usual haunting as you can get."

Dean was baffled. "So, if the pickings are slim, this creature somehow transplants ghosts from other places to almost kill these kids so that they get their brains opened up to the wonderful world of Miss Cleo. And then, on their birthdays, he comes out of their closets or under their beds and makes  _them_ the birthday cake. Otherwise he just takes his psychic snack from the local population? Doesn't that sound like a lot of fucking work? Far-fetched?"

Sam shrugged. "Tell that to Patrick and Emily."

Patrick and Emily...and Amber and  _Sam_...

Fuck everything. He was going to eat this pot roast and it was going to be delicious. Dean stabbed a gravy-laden mound of meat and shoved it into his mouth.

Sam watched the fork go down down a second and third time.

"I think that this is roughly what Dad found out, this connection, but he wouldn't have had as much access to medical information fourteen years ago."

_Well, congrats, Sammy._

"You know what's not comforting about this, besides  _everything_?" Dean's fork and knife hovered over his plate and he leveled his gaze at Sam. "The fact that you were apparently always a tasty psychic snack in the making, but you're  _still_  being haunted. Also, your 24th birthday is a scheduled feeding day."

_That back-eyed bitch said one more birthday, Sammy._

Dean winced and then picked up the thread before he unraveled. "I told you that girl was gaslighting you, leading you off to God knows what, and now you're pretty much telling me that it's par for the course, that the boogeyman's been doing this for years to get what he wants. Do you not ever want me to let you date?"

Sam licked his lips and gently touched his salad with a fork. Just touched it.

"Frankly, you're taking that particular part a little better than I thought you would."

_If you only knew..._

"Yeah? Well, I'm full of surprises. And I have pot roast. And there's pie here." He pointed a fork at Sam, "and you aren't  _hiding_  anything, right?"

"No."

Sam waltzed his own fork around a piece of orange or something and then finally trapped it with a leafy green. He made a face at Dean's persistent stare.

"What?"

"Yeah. I think you must have accepted you were a rabbit a long time ago." He pointed to the salad.

Sam gave him a wilted look. "That's the longest set up for the worst joke...ever."

Dean's mouth grinned around his mashed potatoes but his eyes were hard. "What are you talkin' about? I'm hilarious."

* * *

**May 1993**

**Sam - 10yrs**

_Comfortable? Rested? It's not so bad here it's actually not_

_It is it's cold_

_Your feet don't hurt eyes don't hurt heart doesn't hurt-Not so bad Sam_

_But I hear them-don't like it_

_Who? The screams of the damned the sighs in heaven? The others can't all hear-they won't all hear because Sammy is special_

_Can't move-why am I-_

_Why?_

_Why why is your face like that?_

_You made my face this way Sam_ you  _made it. Trying to run? Hard to run. What are you running on?_

_Ice_

_So slippery-so cold. Don't be brave no reason to be brave-It's scary you should be scared. You hear so many things-see so many things_

_I don't look. I don't look-can't look. I see it all don't smile don't smile please god don't smile_

_Smile when you're happy Sammy cry when you're sad run run run when you're scared_

_No-_

_Can you hear them? The screaming of the damned the sighs in heaven? You're full of wisdomfearheat_

_Dean_

_Can't hear you_

_Dean_ Dean

_Can't hear you won't hear you and you don't hear what you don't want to hear-Don' t see what you don't want to see_

_I see you-I don't want to see you_

_That's_ why _you see me-that's why I_ am

 _You lost you lost I_ know _it_

_Didn't lose-not yet_

_Don't smile please please don't smile at me_

_Can't help it you make me smile. I can hear them too now thank you Sammy. I hear them and everything in hell and in heaven-You should listen_ they're talking about you

_I know I know I know_

_So many plans for Sammy_

_I know don't want to know I won't know_

_Just listen to_ them.  _You think I'm bad-I'm not so bad_

 _No no everyone is bad-every_ thing _is bad_

_Are you bad?_

_I'm bad_

_They'll make you bad_

_Dean_ help

_Can Dean save you?_

_..._

_Screams of the damned sighs in heaven all for Sammy-all for us to hear. Tried for a long time-long time I've tried and now here's Sammy for a little while-maybe to stay_

_Cold cold I hate it. Dean-_

_Can't hear you-not here-you left him and you left everyone_

_..._

_They'll all make you bad so stay Sam-it's better here you won't have to do any of it for_ them

_I don't want to do any of it_

_Stay with me stay-scary yes scary and cold but everyone's safe from Sam everyone-_ Dean, Dad _safe from Sam safe from screams in hell and sighs in heaven_

 _I hate your face I hate your eyes don't ever look at me-stop_ smiling

 _Keep crying and running Sam-you know you_ know _what they want but they'll be safe_

_How?_

_They'll be safe if you are in a place only scary things are_

_..._

_We can hear it all together Sammy-come back to me before it's too late to not be bad_

_Dean Dean Dean_

_Can't hear you_

Dean

* * *

"Sam!  _Sammy_!"

Dean shook Sam. He shook him hard. He all but rattled him like they tell you never to rattle a person because of head stuff but fuck  _fuck!_

For five minutes straight, in the dark, on the bed, in the night, Sam had done nothing but shout his name. Shouted it like he was on another planet, another continent, like he was dying, like he was  _dying_.

And then, again, back to this complete emptiness. Totally silent. Gone. But for five minutes Sam had tried to get help and his eyes had been fucking silvery shiny and it was his little brother's voice, for sure, and he was  _lost_.

But with a lamp on in an empty room Sam's eyes were hazel again. And he was staring at the ceiling. And his fingers were frozen, so Dean grabbed them and held them and fuck, what the fuck, Dad needed to be here for this, to  _see_ this. But when he got back he was going to get a report in detail about it and Dean was going to be fucking calm.

He'd be calm later.

And no one was here now. Not even Sam. And no one could say anything, and no one could  _judge,_  so when he pulled Sam into his arms and cried onto his smaller shoulder with powerful, soul-shaking sobs, it meant nothing to no one.

It meant nothing to no one.

(to be continued...)


	13. "Out on the Tiles"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 14 years ago, Dean and Dad travel back to Kansas to try to get some help for Sam from an old friend. In the present, Sam gets messages from the past that break the boogeyman case wide open. And this time, the messages aren't just from his evolving psychic dreams...
> 
> Lots of Kansas in this one, friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School. Amirite? Sorry for the lateness. Trying to use Thanksgiving break to bring you these next couple of chapters which set up the climax. All important stuff. Thank you to everyone who has been following. As a tribute to your dedication, I provided a recap.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has reviewed or faved this. I appreciate it! And thanks also to Agelade for keeping me caught up in this fandom so I have the drive to finish it. And I WILL finish it.
> 
> -Caladrius

 

 

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

 

The following is provided for those who want a recap but who aren't likely to go back and re-read to get it. Chapter 13 follows directly after the recap.

You're welcome.

**The road so far (cue "Carry On, My Wayward Son")**

When Sam was 9 and Dean was 14, they encountered the boogeyman in Osseo, Wisconsin. Specifically, Sam encountered the boogeyman as a thing with shiny hematite eyes in his closet that he hoped was his imagination, but didn't  _believe_  was his imagination. Staying up all night in vigilance for several days in a row led to unavoidable sleep deprivation.

Sam also met a nice, sick little girl named Amber-a 3rd grader, who made an impression on him. She happened to have the same birthday as Sam, and she gave him her hair tie - a little black and red thing in the shape of a ladybug. In a moment of empathy, Sam promised he'd call her on their birthday.

Worrying about what his brother would think of his fears, and concerned about it all, Sam tried to keep it to himself. Dean, whose entire job was Sam (even if he was going through puberty and having girl issues of his own) became wise to the fact that something was wrong and attempted various strategies to discover the root of the issue.

Brother angst ensued.

The boogeyman made its creepy presence in several understated appearances, not least of which was a nightmare in which Sam sees a Yellow-eyed demon...

Sam takes a chance, tells Dean about his fears, who promptly goes into Big Brother mode.

Nothing in the closet.

But when Dad returned to find them in the middle of the closet investigation, shit got real.

John Winchester put a gun into Sam's hand and told him he had to face the boogeyman. Sam, who didn't want this hunter's life and had never killed  _anything_  is unable to get up the nerve to do it...until Dad hits Dean.

But Dean won't let Sam take the burden on himself and is concerned that when the moment counted, Sam's sleep deprivation would cause a misstep and he'd lose his brother forever. He insists on taking Sam's place, and the boogeyman never shows up.

Or did it?

In the morning, Sam's 10th birthday, he received a heartfelt hand-carved gift from Dean less than five minutes before finding out from their father that the nice, lonely little girl who shared their birthday is gone. An apparent victim of the boogeyman.

Disappeared without a trace.

In shock and horror, Sam tried to escape in the only way he could, and that was when he stopped speaking-catatonia.

Dean, overcome with guilt himself, was still saddled with the task of Sam's care, but it became tinged with fear and horror: Sam talked in his sleep. Sam  _screamed for Dean_  in his sleep, and at least once before, Dean saw Sam's eyes become silvery and shiny...

_Flash forward_

Almost fourteen years later, a couple weeks after he reunites with Dean after their father's disappearance, Sam's interest in the unsolved boogeyman case is piqued when he can't find  _any_  notes in John's journal about the boogeyman or that case.

Feeling strongly that this case was left open because of his failure to take decisive action when he was 9, Sam begins an investigation to try to end it once and for all. Dean, helpless to stop his younger brother's apparent self-destructive line of inquiry, finds himself caught between the ever-present worry that Sam will disappear as he did fourteen years ago, or worse. Sam's insistence becomes impossible to surmount after the death of John Winchester when Sam learns the terrible truth of his father's last words to Dean:

That if Dean can't save Sam, he will have to kill him.

To make matters more emotionally complicated, Sam begins having mysterious "green-smelling" dreams in which their father appears to be trying to tell him something about a silver box.

Sure that solving this case will somehow fix his destiny, Sam's determination to find out more about the boogeyman and the fate of the little girl he befriended for a couple of days when he was nine leads the brothers to Greensburg, PA. There they find out from Amber's mother that the little girl was, in fact, psychic.

It's not a reassuring coincidence considering Sam's current state of evolving psychic dreams and, like Amber's mother, he has also been having dreams of the missing little girl.

The plot continues to thicken when Sam and Dean ambush a demon sent by Yellow Eyes who reveals that the boogeyman has an interest in psychic children, in particular, and that Sam is risking himself even further by delving into the old case.

None of this sits well with Sam or Dean, and Sam, at least, deals with it by drinking heavily.

When Dean discovers that the "dreams" Sam is having about Amber are actually ghostly visitations, he attempts to put the final kibosh on Sam's investigation. Sam tries to reason with Dean, and when that doesn't work, he just flat out refuses to give up. After hours of fighting, Dean leaves.

When he returns, he finds Sam gone and panics. Even though his brother had simply been out getting ice, the fear has been frankly sewn that Sam will not give up and that, if pushed too far, might take off on his own, leaving himself exposed to Yellow Eyes and demons and boogeymen alike.

Dean reconciles with Sam, but only because he worries that Sam will actually leave if pushed too far.

The next day, Sam reveals what he learned in his investigation: The boogeyman appears in Osseo every seven years. In each incident, a child with a psychic profile disappeared sharing the birthday of May 2. Further investigation led Sam to believe that the boogeyman might somehow be using the ghosts of children to lure potential victims into near-death experiences, triggering a psychic shift, if there were no victims matching its requirements.

Dean points out that Sam's upcoming 24th birthday is a scheduled "feeding" day...

_**Now...** _

* * *

__

**Chapter 13: "Out on the Tiles"**

**1993**

**Sam - 10**

**Dean - 14**

"We're going to Missouri."

"What's in Missouri?" Dean asked, standing Sam up, brushing the hair out of his face with his fingers while Sam stared at nothing. John zipped a bag shut and Dean felt another wave of nausea come over him. He'd thrown up this morning after John had finally gotten in, and he was pretty sure it wasn't because of the Taco Bell he ate the night before.

A catatonic brother screaming his name, that helpless feeling of being able to do  _nothing_. It could make a guy sick.

He had done it as quietly as possible, flushed it, cleaned up before Dad could become wise to it. Gotta keep up the iron front.

"Not the  _state_ , son."

What? Oh.

Oh. Missouri Mosely. Yeah, Dean vaguely remembered her. She had become one of Dad's friends somewhere around the time that Mom...died, but Dean didn't recall much of her since.

"Can she help us? With Sam?"

"She's psychic. The real deal. She might." John looked up and Dean schooled his face.

"Son, I don't want you to get your hopes up."

"No, sir."

Once upon a time, Dad had been sure Sam would just wake up on his own. Now his version of being "realistic" had taken a completely different turn.

Dean wanted to puke again.

"Get your brother. We're going back."

"Back, sir?"

"Back to Kansas."

* * *

**April 11, 2007**

**Sam - 23**

**Dean - 28**

Dean sipped his beer and turned the channel. It felt weird being stationary. He and Sam had been busy, been traveling, and a few days and nights had gone by without personal ghosts coming from closets. If felt good to be hunting, regular hunts-no demons, and Sam had been researching likely candidates for boogeyman brunch on their off time, which, honestly, was not overflowing.

Yesterday they finished wrapping up a complicated case of ghost-impersonates-angel to motivate ordinary citizens to murder: A prostitute stabbed a guy who had a body buried in his basement, another killed a man with questionable e-mails and plans to meet a 13-year-old girl, and the last guy, the one Sam was convinced he had to stop, was exceedingly impolite to the ladies. And yeah, Sam's "angel-guided" tipoff caused Dean to follow the rat bastard and his date to an abandoned alley where bad bad things might have gone down. And, yeah, in trying to get away a freak accident caused a metal pole to rocket off of a truck and spear the guy through the chest like some kind of heavenly retribution for his sin, but that didn't mean there was a God out there.

And then the angel turned out to be a young murdered priest who thought he was "answering the prayers" of the shepherd of the flock he had left behind. Last Rites was enough to convince the ghost to move on, and it  _should_ have been considered a happy ending by their standards, but Dean was pretty sure it had taken a toll on his brother.

_Come on, Sam. It's not like things haven't been failing us constantly for years..._

Sam had been so sure it was an angel the entire time, and there was no big payoff for a belief he had been quietly fostering for almost his whole life. Still, at least Sam admitted he hadn't been objective for  _that_  case. Now if only Dean could find the proper means to dissuade him from the other one.

And speaking of Sam, was he talking in his sleep or-

Dean glanced over at the other full size bed. Sam was on it, and a half an hour ago he had been tapping away silently, stretched out, but now his head was on the headboard and his eyes were closed.

Dean's eyes narrowed.

When Sam talked in his sleep, Dean got  _afraid_.

"Sam?"

There was no response, but a hand twitched on the covers. Dean waited, and when nothing else was forthcoming, he turned his head back to the tube.

"Dad..."

Okay, now,  _that_  was pretty clear.

"Sammy?"

Sam woke up with a start. He blinked.

"Hey... _hey_." Dean put his beer on the bedside stand. "You okay?"

"Dean. Bobby's calling." It was a strange tone of voice. A statement.

His brother looked at him as if he had just grown an arm out of his forehead.

"Dude, if you're dreaming about Bobby..."

And then his phone on the covers next to him began to emit a familiar electric guitar riff. Dean grabbed it and checked the caller ID...

...and then he stared at Sam who looked sorry.  _Sorry._

* * *

Dean dropped his coat onto a chair in Bobby's dining room.

"Thanks for coming, boys." Bobby's face was sober, and that was saying something.

"Bobby, what is it? All you told us on the phone was that we had to get here by today no matter the case." Sam glanced at Dean and back to their mentor. "Are you okay? Something happen?"

Good old Sammy-still always worried about everyone else but himself.

"No, son, I'm fine. But...maybe you boys should sit down. This is gonna sound weird, even for us."

It was Dean's turn to look at Sam.

"Why all the buildup, Bobby? Why don't you just..."

"Why don't you just  _sit down_ , Dean."

Dean was surprised. "Or...I could do that."

Sam looked uncomfortable in the chair that was made for human-sized people, and Dean couldn't blame him. The trip and anticipation back to South Dakota had been maddening for them both.

Bobby took his time explaining as he pulled out a bottle of whiskey and three glasses even though it was 10am and the two Winchester brothers had been driving for six hours through the night.

Bobby opened the bottle and poured a shot for Dean. "I keep track of a lot of things for a lot of people, not just for your Dad, but he did have a way of keeping our business always in the front of the ledger, if ya know what I mean. Didn't talk for a number of years, but didn't keep grudges like girls."

Sam and Dean sat up simultaneously.

_Dad._

The older man walked over to Sam and poured him a drink too. "Hell, you boys already knew the obvious parts of his personality-larger than life, intense, 'speak softly and carry a bazooka'..."

Finally, Bobby filled his own glass nearly to the top. "So, I want you to remember all of that when I lay this one on you." He downed the drink in one gulp and poured another. "And I don't want any lip, sass, or questions about any of it because everything I know, I'm gonna say straight out. What you do after that is up to you."

"Bobby, what the hell, man, Sam's gonna wet himself if you don't just spill it already," but Dean knew his voice was nervous through the laugh that followed. Still, Sam didn't counter his assertion, and his little brother's brow was practically scaling his forehead.

"I'm about to. It's for Sam, anyway."

Sam started.

Bobby picked up a tiny manila envelope that Dean had noticed when they first walked in. "Over a decade ago, John gave me this. He told me never to open it, never to say anything about it, and to give it to you, Sam, three weeks before your 24th birthday. Made me promise on graves. Made me swear on my soul. Dramatic for him. Not something you forget."

Dean's eyes were wide. Falling out of his head. His heart picked up the tempo.

"Dad did?" Sam whispered.

"Showed up one night, handed it to me, spoke about 20 whole words about it, got his assurances and left. He checked on it once last year, called to make sure I still had it, that I hadn't forgotten it. And today is the day, so, Sam. Here it is." Bobby held the envelope out to Dean's poor stunned brother. There was already a glimmer in Sam's eyes, and terror.

Real terror.

But when he reached for it, his hand was steady.

"Holy shit," Dean breathed. He grabbed the glass of whiskey and slammed it back. Bobby wordlessly refilled it, distracted, as they both watched Sam's fingers examine the envelope where one word was scrawled with a heavy hand:

" _Sammy."_

Dean felt as if their father was in the room, like he was standing behind him, raising the hackles along his neck.

Sam swallowed. He gathered his nerves-Dean could actually  _see_  him do it-and ripped the top off. He blew into it and tilted it out into his palm. A silver key with a green tag and an index card slid into his hand.

Dean took his second shot and grabbed the bottle. His eyes met Sam's.

"What is it, Sam?"

Sam shook his head. He examined the key and then looked at the index card.

"This is Dad's handwriting. It's...it's my full name, date of birth, the letters LB...initials maybe? And my actual Social Security number."

Dean blinked. What the holy hell? Sam stared back at him blankly. "Well? What else?"

Sam went back to examining the card. "It has two other sets of numbers here. An 8 digit one and..." he tilted the card, 'C125.'" He looked at the tag of the key, "C125 on the key too."

There was a pregnant pause as Sam turned his soulful eyes on Bobby and then Dean by turns. "Dean, what is this?"

Dean shook his head, "Don't look at me, man."

"What?" Bobby asked, incredulous, "Even I know what that is."

"Bobby, Dad said not to look at it," Dean was indignant for Sam's sake.

"I didn't, ya idjit, but it doesn't take a worldly genius to figure it out." He rolled his eyes, "Guess there was a reason your daddy made me promise to personally put it into your hands. Come on, boys, let's go take a three-hour tour of how civilized folks in this country go about things. Dean, for God's sake, put the bottle down or you'll drown yourself. Sam, you're driving."

* * *

**1993**

**Sam - 10**

**Dean - 14**

Missouri was and soft and round and warm. Not like girls Dean's age. Not like models draped over muscle cars and motorcycles in magazines, but like comfort and security and gentle understanding.

Like mom.

Her hug was unavoidable and completely unexpected and genuine. Dean's stomach unknotted and it was like she had absorbed the tension right into her body when she stepped away, leaving him almost a little stunned with relief.

Missouri pulled him back, looked him in the eyes. Her round, dark face was twenty kinds of welcoming.

"You've been toughing it out like a champ, Dean Winchester. You come right on in and let me take a little of that load off, all right?"

Dumbly he nodded as she patted his cheek and made way for him to go into her home.

Lawrence, Kansas.

Once, this town was home, but the memories were fleeting-they were more feelings now than anything else, and smells. It was nostalgic and bittersweet and like something out of dream.

Dad had Sam in his arms and was holding him like a little kid. Missouri made some you-been-gone-too-long greetings to John and then she murmured to Sam who, of course, said nothing back.

Fifteen minutes later, Dean was sitting on a chair in Missouri's kitchen staring at a plate containing turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and gravy. So much gravy. Homemade gravy that he had just ladled on like there was a faucet in the house that ran with it. Dad said something about it, but Missouri cut him off and encouraged Dean to "help himself," which he did.

Home-cooked food. And it was hot, just came from her oven, and Dean realized that this was one of those smells that he remembered from home: warm food made with caring hands.

Dad said, "Missouri. Really. This is unnecessary."

"Hush your mouth, John Winchester, and eat your beans. Just happens I had a turkey in my freezer and it was doing nothing good. When was the last time you sat at a table and ate a meal with these boys?"

Dean's eyebrow twitched. That someone could talk to his father like that.

John made a noise, but he picked up his fork and it was kind of amazing the things Missouri could do. Dean hadn't said a word since they arrived, and it wasn't like him, but this was all...

"You just gonna stare at it?"

Dean looked up at her and blinked.

Missouri made a face and turned on his father.

"This boy hasn't seen a turkey in 10 years?"

"Been kinda busy, Missouri," John growled, but it was around a nicely browned piece of meat, and Dean wasn't sure he was as pissed as he sounded.

"Yeah, I know. And we'll get to the business at hand, but it can wait long enough for you to eat something real for a change."

Dean picked up his knife and fork and turned to Sam's plate. Sam sat, his eyes fixed on some point across the room, and he didn't stir.

"Ah ah!"

Dean froze as Missouri dove in.

"I got this, young man. Sam's gonna eat too. You just worry about your half of the turkey, okay? And then afterwards you're gonna say 'hey there, Missouri. Long time no see! Thanks for dinner,' and feel a whole lot better about things." Her expression brooked no argument.

Missouri put the fork in Sam's hand and guided it to his mouth. He chewed it slowly. Really slowly. And then he swallowed.

Dean looked at Missouri, wondering if this was okay, making this lady feed his kid brother, but she pointed at Dean's plate with an expression that said, "I've got this end."

It was the first time Dean smiled in a week.

* * *

"Hey there, Missouri. Long time no see. Thanks for dinner. Seriously."

Missouri smiled as she took Dean's plate away.

"Now, that's what I'm talking about. How you feelin'?"

"Like I'm gonna explode. It actually hurts." Dean took a breath and rubbed his stomach.

Missouri laughed. "Boys your age are supposed to eat like that. Don't you worry about it."

"But don't get used to it, either," John interjected quietly.

Dean glanced from him to their benefactor, deflated. "No, sir."

Missouri made a face at his father, but John didn't see it. He was hunched down next to Sam's chair, still, his gaze on his son, and his face was that kind of unreadable quality that Dean knew meant he was keeping something down pretty tight.

Dean flinched a little as Missouri's hand squeezed his shoulder.

"Let's go stretch out and get comfortable, Dean."

He tore himself from the image in front of him to look into Missouri's dark eyes. She could read every worry there, he knew it.

"I'm gonna help you boys if I can, okay?"

Dean swallowed. Nodded.

"Good. Now let's see if we can get that little brother to unlock and give us some answers."

* * *

**April 12, 2007**

**Sam - 23**

**Dean - 28**

Dad's mystery package prompted Bobby to suggest a "three-hour tour," and Dean's half-drunken grumbling about how well  _that_  had turned out for the S. S. Minnow garnered nothing more than a sour look from their mentor.

Bobby's idea of a "tour" was a five hour drive from Sioux Falls, South Dakota to the Winchester's hometown of Lawrence, Kansas. Dean was a little concerned that Sam's sober state of mind at the moment behind the wheel probably equaled Dean's with four shots of whiskey in his system, but there was no way to delay the trip, and drinking and driving was a serious no-no (according to Sam). This did not mean that Dean couldn't sulk for the first two hours. And contrary to his previous rule that the driver got to choose the music, Dean kept jamming cassette after cassette of 70's rock into the stereo since Bobby refused to say anything more about the mystery beyond their destination. Sam didn't complain. Sam said nothing, and that was worse than Sam complaining.

"Relaxing" was not how Dean would ever describe that trip. Sam was pointedly not talking about anything, but it was clear he was thinking about it. His eyes searched the flat horizon for answers for the duration of trip, and because he wasn't driving, Dean had nothing to do but watch Sam watch the road while they both suffered the anticipation. It frankly sucked.

The sun was fully up in a bright blue day when Bobby directed them into the parking lot of a friendly green building.

"Lawrence Bank?" Dean smacked the dash. "That's the 'LB.' And the numbers must be for an account or something."

"Wow, Dean, can you tie your shoes, too?" Bobby drawled from the backseat.

"Hey, give me a break. After Milwaukee, I'm repressing anything having to do with banks."

Sam put the Impala in park and took a deep breath. "Yeah. And the key is for a safety deposit box. I'm an idiot," he said softly.

"But you're  _our_  idiot," Dean patted his shoulder with a condescending smile.

Sam shook his head. "No, Dean. I mean, I should have figured it out weeks ago. The...the dreams. Remember? The dreams about..." he took a deep breath, "Rows of silver boxes...the smell of green."

Dean made a face, "Yeah, I still don't get the green smell unless it's this building..."

"It's money."

"What?"

"Money. Bills. The smell of bills. The ink-on-linen scent is distinctive to-"

"Wait, what? Linen? Are you telling me George Washington is riding a bedsheet?"

Dean leaned forward, grabbed his wallet from his back pocket, and pulled out whatever he had in there (three ones, five tens, two twenties) and put them to his nose.

Sam watched the maneuver with a mixture of disgust and dismay though Dean thought he caught the upturned edge of a smile. "George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, yeah. All of those guys and, Dean...really?"

"I'll be damned. They do smell."

Sam shook his head. "I doubt that's the ink."

"Hey, I don't like what you're implying. I bathe regularly." But he didn't mind the fact that Sam was less on edge-Dean was on edge enough for both of them. "Let's go see what's in the magic box," Dean started for the door handle but Bobby grabbed his shoulder.

"Not so fast. Boys on the FBI's most wanted list for murder can stay in the car."

"What? Hell no."

"Dean, Bobby's right. Just wait here." Sam exited the driver's side.

"What about you? After our  _last_  fun time in a bank, you're probably in the top 50 most wanted as a 'person of interest'..."

"Maybe, but my name  _is_ on the account and we may possibly need to make a quick getaway. Just think about it. This is your chance to be Robert Redford as the 'Sundance Kid.'"

"Hey, hey, don't jinx me. That movie didn't end well."

Sam threw him the keys through the open window and he and Bobby walked towards the entrance.

Dean sighed and slid into the driver's seat. Really needed to do something about that growing list of warrants. Maybe he could fake his own death...again. Unhappy being the one left, he pushed Led Zeppelin into the tape deck and leaned back.

* * *

He was about halfway through the track "In My Time of Dying" when Bobby opened the back door and got in. Dean pushed the eject button and scanned behind him, jumping to conclusions when he saw his little brother nowhere, wondering how long until he heard the sirens.

"Where's Sam?"

"He's fine. Made it through. Everything was in order and they took him to the safety deposit room."

"And?" Dean turned his body towards the back so he could measure the old man's expression.

"And Sam invoked the right to view the contents of his safety deposit box alone."

Dean stared at Bobby as if he was speaking some weird language found only in one of his ancient dusty books.

"What? And you just  _let_  him?"

Bobby gave him a withered look. "Just zip the whining and watch the entrance."

"What? Why?" But he turned anyway, concerned that his brother might be running for the car after all.

"So when he comes out I can go help him cross the parking lot too, ya idjit." Dean felt a hand smack him lightly upside the back of his head. "Did it ever cross your mind that your little brother is a grown up?" There was a pause. "And I mean that. He's almost nine feet tall."

But Bobby didn't know. He didn't know that Sam had been dreaming about this, about Dad. He didn't know that two seconds before the phone rang, Sam had seen John Winchester in a dream who basically told him the call was coming. He didn't know because it was a little too freaky even for Dean, and hunters got twitchy when things didn't "add up." Dean wasn't sure enough yet whether he could trust Bobby to tell him the whole story, if Sam could still be safe under that roof afterwards. And while it was true that Sam  _had_  grown up, there was one thing Dean knew-age and height had nothing to do with what was at the end of this road and whether Sam was going to survive it. Any of it.

* * *

**1993**

**Sam - 10**

**Dean - 14**

John looked uncomfortable on Missouri's couch. He sat forward, his elbows on his knees, fingers in a stranglehold on each other between his legs. Every few seconds they tensed, became clasped, almost praying. Dean felt tension roll off the man, passing through Sam who sat complacently and woodenly between them.

Dean swallowed.

Missouri had moved the coffee table and pulled in a kitchen chair so she could sit opposite Sam. Her demeanor was more relaxed, and she smiled at his little brother, watched him for several seconds in silence.

John raised a hand, wiped it through the two-day-old dark stubble on his chin.

"Might be a bad idea."

"Well, you shoulda thought about that before you called and came." But the softness of Missouri's face was louder than the retort of her words.

"Can you bring him back?" Dean asked finally, hopefully.

"Well, that depends on where he's gone," she told him slowly, honestly. "Lotsa places a person can go when they're not here. The mind is complex and tricky thing, and it's connected to everything."

"Everything?"

She turned to Dean and he felt her attention fall on him like a heavy woolen blanket. "That's right, honey. You take a biology class-they can tell you what the brain looks like, what it's made of, but that's just the start." Her voice was hypnotic yet academic at the same time. "Your head is connected to your soul, to other souls, to feelings other souls have left behind. We're made to be connected, Dean. That's how it is. That's why we don't like being left behind."

Dean tensed. In his mind's eye there was a fire, and one by one everyone started to disappear. Mom died, Dad turned into someone else, and Sam...

Missouri's hand on his knee, her liquid gaze, brought him back.

"You just keep hanging onto them, Dean Winchester. Ain't nothing wrong with that feeling."

He swallowed.

Missouri nodded at him, and then she turned back to Sam and gently took his brother's hands into her own.

"All right, Sam. You tell me what you need to tell me. I'm listening..."

* * *

_Someone's here warm Warm_

_Shhh go back to sleep sleepy Sammy_

_No no something someone warm please please_

_She'll hear...she'll know how_ bad _you are_

 _...don't care anymore cold here cold_ cold

_Oh? Don't care? Liar liar house on fire..._

_Can't get out feet sliding-where is out? Is it there?_

_No no not out just deeper-you want to go deeper? We can go deeper Sleepy Sammy-yes wait wait wait_

_Stop looking at me-I hate your face! Dean!_

_You won't leave it's too cold that way-all the dead are there_

_No_

_All the dead point at Sam Sammy Sam Sam-all the dead point at Sam all the dead all the dead all the dead_

_No no_

_Dad dead Dean dead Amber dead Mommy dead_

_No not Dean_

_In the ground in the dirt-you put him there_

_God_

_Not here_

_Please_

_It's going to happen stay stay_

_I'm sorry!_

_Cry here safer here-easier-tell the nice lady to go away Sammy show her my face Sammy_

_Don't die Dean_

* * *

Dean knew something was wrong the second Missouri closed her eyes. There was a twitch in her eyebrow. Whatever it was, it wasn't what she expected to find, but she should have at least expected something unexpected-Dean had told her about everything: the eyes, the midnight screaming...

He hazarded a glance at his father, but John was riveted to the silent drama.

Sam didn't move. He stayed exactly the same.

Missouri squeezed Sam's hands and then all at once things changed.

For one, the temperature in the room dropped. A weird vibration pulsed outward from his little brother to the the floorboards. Three feet away, a decorative glass bowl on the coffee table began to clink and shudder musically. Picture frames chittered along the wall like a percussionist's domino effect, spreading out and up the stairs.

Missouri muttered, "Sweet Jesus," and then Sam's limp hands suddenly clamped down on hers.

"Sam!" Dean shouted. It was the first sign of life in a week. It was the first sign of  _life_ , but John yelled, "Dean! Don't move!" and Dean realized he was reaching for those hands, wanted to be gripped by them.

John's voice was  _that_  voice.

Dean tried to control his breathing. His lungs hurt.

John stood up slowly. He looked around the room, and yeah that made sense because rattling things and pulling all the heat was what ghosts typically did when they were about to start shit. And right now, if something started shit Sam and Missouri were going to need protectors.

"Dad, what do we do?"

Dean's hands were half toward Sam, shackled by John's command, fighting it, looking for something else,  _anything else_  he could do to help.

"If Missouri's in trouble, we need to pull them apart.  _Dean!_ "

Dean had to tear his eyes away from Sam to look at their father. His eyes were dark.

"You with me?"

Dean nodded, swallowed. Had to not be emotionally compromised-had to be ready...

Missouri's eyes pinched shut. Her chin trembled as if she was exerting every ounce of will, every straining muscle of her body, towards something...

And then Sam's green eyes became hard and shiny and silvery.

Like hematite.

That was the last straw.

"You fucking bastard!" Dean slid off the couch and grabbed both Sam's shoulders with his fists. The muscles in his jaw were working, clenching, his head hurt. He ignored his father's voice. He didn't care that Missouri was still holding his brother's hands.

"You fucking bastard! Let him go, do you hear me? You let him go or I swear to God!"

Sam was frozen. It numbly sank in through his shirt into Dean's fingers, and it was as if he had tried to grab a flagpole in South Dakota in the middle of January. A shot of ice went right to his heart.

"Dean!"

Dean felt his father's arms on him, around him, but Dean didn't want to let go. He couldn't let go!

"Do you fucking hear me, you creepy bastard?"

And then Sam turned and looked straight at him. Looked at him and the eyes were green again and Sam's voice said, so clearly, "Don't die, Dean."

" _Sam!_ "

But then John pulled him off because Dad's arms were stronger, and Dad was saying his name and Dean felt  _crazy_. Wanted to hit something, wanted to punch himself in the chest to get his heart going again. Wanted to shatter or be shattered and Missouri was falling back in the chair and she looked sick. And oh, crap, Missouri...

"Dean! Get ahold of yourself!  _That's an order_!"

Something programmed into his muscles obeyed. His chest heaved, Dad's arms were a vise around him from behind and they were tight and it was hard to breathe.

"Let him go, John."

Missouri's voice was still with them and it still had power. She flexed her fingers, made fists, held them to her bosom because they had to have been cold. Really cold.

Dean felt the shackles release and he fell down to his knees in front of his brother.

Sam had gone away again. His eyes were green but blank. The temperature in the room was returning to normal and the tremors along the floor were gone.

"Sam."

_Dammit!_

"Missouri..."

Dean turned to the woman slumped in the chair. John was gentle with her, helped her sit up. He squeezed her arm and her eyes blinked, glistened, refocused. She took a deep breath and moved her body slightly, waking up into the world, still rubbing her hands together.

"I'm okay."

John put a little pressure on her shoulder. He looked from her to Dean. His gaze flickered so briefly to Sam that Dean might have imagined it.

"I'll get you some water. Sit tight."

Missouri nodded and John left.

The silence in the room was deafening.

"I was right, wasn't I?" Dean's skin was a mess of hard goosebumps, and they weren't going away.

"Ain't gonna lie to you, Dean. You called it."

"What do we do?"

John came back and Missouri took the glass gratefully. He turned his attentions to the patient and took a knee in front of Sam, finally. Dad put a hand on his son's cheek, and his face was pale.

Missouri drank half the glass before she spoke again.

"That little boy is all confused by something that got no business being here. When he figures out what he wants, he can break free and come back. Whatever that thing is that's tryin' to keep your brother? It isn't as strong here, the way it is, but it tries."

The cold spots. That blistering  _cold._

"This ain't its time or place and it knows that. This was plan B."

Right. Because somehow Dean foiled plan A.

Dean's heart skipped a beat and then faltered. His brain raced around and around and any hope he had in her words got hung up on one fact.

"Why would he  _not_  just...just make up his mind and come back?"

"I suspect that...whatever it is...is telling him things."

"Like what? I mean, what would be so good in there that it would keep him from coming back?"

Missouri took a deep breath.

"I don't think there's anything good in there. But, a few words can make everything out here seem a whole lot worse."

Dean stared at her, and then he remembered Sam's voice.

" _Don't die, Dean."_

Jesus Christ.

What the holy, hell, Sam. Really?

He turned and shook his little brother. "Sam, dammit, I'm not gonna  _die_ , come out here. Now you're just pissing me off."

"Dean."

Missouri closed the distance between them. Her voice leaned into Dean's ear.

"That boy is gonna come back because of you and nothing and nobody else. Choose what you say carefully."

Dean swallowed because her words implied he should back off, but her tone said "your brother is in so much trouble."

Missouri stood up and Dean realized that she had been whispering to him, was out of eyeshot of their father, for a reason. A secret. Something between the two of them...and Sam.

Sam stuck somewhere with the boogeyman, probably listening to lies. But Missouri had told him two things that Dean would hold onto: The boogeyman wasn't strong here, and Sam was stronger. Sam could do it. He would come back when he figured it out. He would, and Dean was going to believe that. And he was going to make it hard for Sam to stay away because,  _dammit_ , he missed this kid and there were a lot of things he had to do yet.

* * *

" _Dean...don't die, Dean. Don't die, Dean."_

" _Sammy, I'm tellin' you, I ain't gonna die, okay? Just come back..."_

" _Dean."_

"Dean."

His eyes burned and Sam's voice became an echo. His father was shaking his shoulder.

The hell? Did he nod off?

"Sir." Dean sat up and something moved, slid down his arm.

Sam.

He was asleep. Had been asleep on his shoulder and this stupid big brother had just gone to la la land sitting up, for Christsakes. Who  _did_  that?

Missouri laughed a little.

"Child, you ate your weight twice over in turkey and stuffing and gravy, and you've had an exciting day. Sleep is what you wanted. Ain't no harm in taking it when you can."

Sam didn't wake up either, not even when Dean turned to try to sit the kid back up. With his eyes closed, breathing deeply, Dean could pretend the kid was just going to wake up in an hour.

John reached down and picked Sam up the way he had been doing a lot lately and pinned his clear, dark gaze on Dean. "We're going, son."

Dad, sober for two days, and maybe this news from Missouri would keep it that way for a little. Maybe. Or maybe it would send him in the opposite direction. It was hard to tell because Dad never talked about things.

"Yes, sir."

"And we're gonna have a talk about your language."

Well, fuck. Some things didn't change.

"Yes, sir." Dean grimaced and stood up from the couch into a hug ambush.

Missouri's embrace was tighter than the first.

"Dean, you keep that chin up and you keep fightin', you hear me?"

Dean pressed his lips together.

"Yes, ma'am."

She put a couple of packed grocery bags into his hands. "First place you stop, you get some ice for the cooler and put these leftovers in there. Don't you let my mama's secret stuffing recipe go to waste, do you hear me?"

The whites of her eyes were so stark in contrast to the smile on her lips.

Dean half-grinned.

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you. And thank you, um. Thank you, seriously. For Sammy."

She said nothing to that but patted his cheek affectionately.

When Missouri turned to John, however, the smile disappeared.

"John Winchester, you remember what I told you."

Their father wasn't getting the warm and fuzzy treatment. How long had Dean been out? Was there something he had missed?

"Missouri, take care of yourself."

He moved to the door, Sam's sleeping cheek on his shoulder.

"I always do. Hey, John,"

He stopped at the threshold.

"It's been too long."

John took a deep breath. He did glance back at her. "You call if you find out anything else. Please."

Missouri nodded.

On the way to the car Dean said, "Sir, did Missouri say anything else about Sam when I was out?"

"No, son. Nothing new."

_You're lying..._

But that  _was_ nothing new.

* * *

**April 12, 2007**

**Sam - 23**

**Dean - 28**

"Are you gonna clue us in sometime, Sam?" At the end of his patience, Dean banged on the door his brother had locked earlier at Bobby's place. The level of pokerfacing Sam had achieved when he emerged from the bank earlier that day with a thick opened package under his arm had proved a couple of things. One of those things was that Dean was probably not going to like what was in the safety deposit box, and the other was that his little brother had officially become too good at keeping quiet.

Ignored. The entire way back. Bobby told him to give Sam some space, but that was difficult when they had a five hour (oh, hell no. They'd be back at Bobby's in three hours, tops) drive and his brother was less than two feet away as still as a statue. It was difficult when it felt like fourteen years had led to this moment, and Dean was being sidelined. To make matters worse, Sam was the first out of the car and his only words were "I need at least four hours." And then it was into the house, into the room and, goddammit, a locked door? Really Sam? Because  _this_  was definitely the time to Amelia Earhart it around the globe solo...

Four hours was too long. Ten minutes was too long.

The lock clicked and Sam opened the door.

"Well, it's about damn time."

"Get Bobby. He needs to see this, too." Sam had the package and his laptop under his arm. Were his eyes red?

"What's goin' on, Sam?" Dean knew his tone was conveying more annoyance than the concern he felt, but his brother deserved it for the lockout.

"Just get Bobby. I'll meet you in the library." Sam brushed past him before an argument could start. Dean ground his teeth, clenched a fist, but figured the fastest way to get answers right now would be to just follow along...until such time as there was simply going to be no more following along.

That time felt like it was fast approaching.

_(to be continued...)_


	14. "Battery"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John Winchester has left a breadcrumb trail for Sam leading to the boogeyman, and Dean is not happy about it. He copes with alcohol. Lots and lots of it. And picking a fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aren't you spoiled, getting two huge chapters in two days? And this one is the one that brings it all around. A lot to share and care, but it's necessary, I promise. And the angst? It's here.
> 
> Thanks so much to the peeps who ALREADY commented on chapter 13. You people are like kittens that I just want to hug and cuddle and kiss the noses of. YOU CAN COMMENT AS MUCH AS YOU WANT :'D
> 
> And if you haven't, you should go read Agelade's AU Season 9, "Lustra" already in progress because I said so. It's good. And if you review and tell her to hurry up and finish ch 3 of episode 5, she might even do that for you.
> 
> -Caladrius

 

 

 

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

**  
**

**Chapter 14: "Battery"**

**April 12, 2007**

**Sam - 23**

**Dean - 28**

The three men stood over the table in Bobby's study where Sam had neatly laid out an assortment of papers of various ages, sketches, and notes in John Winchester's hand. It was their father's collection on the boogeyman, and it was all right here, seeing the light of day for the first time in over ten years. When Dean touched the carefully cut out journal pages it was like putting his hand through a time machine to reach the man,  _that man_ , who still haunted Dean in the things he said, in the music he listened to, in the leather jacket he wore, in the car he drove.

In the orders he gave before he died.

"Dean?"

Sam had the audacity to look worried about  _him_. Right. Game face time.

He cleared his throat. "So. What am I lookin' at? Did Dad figure out the boogeyman thing? I mean, why else hole all of this up until now?"

"Yeah," Sam began, opening a couple of Bobby's books to certain pages and laying out several recent computer printouts and handwritten notes obviously from his own investigation. "He figured that out and more. And frankly, most of it is still just...just some major working theories, but he didn't stop investigating the boogeyman after May 2nd 1993 when it..." Sam's jaw worked for a second before he his explanation took a different route. "He kept researching things for almost two years afterward, but he never planned to be the one to end it. He closed the box on July 28, 1995, and the bank said that no one's touched it since."

Dean put his hand on the table and considered it.

"What're you tryin' to say, Sam? That Dad didn't think he'd live long enough to catch up with it again? That he knew he would..."

When it came to their father, it was hard to keep level. All the things he was  _supposed_  to do. The things he should have never  _done_.

"No, not necessarily. I mean, I don't know exactly what he was thinking," Sam said quickly, "but at the very least he was passing this on to me, Dean. Me specifically."

There was that helpless urge to punch their father again.

"Look, Sam, I'm not buyin'  _anything_ until I know what's going on, so start talking or I'll take it all into  _my_ room and wipe my ass with it." Because,  _dammit, Sam, you were nine! You don't have to do this!_

Apparently his brother took the threat seriously. He scratched his face and was too fucking  _calm_.

"Okay." He took a deep breath, "So, I'm not even sure how to start."

"What the hell is the boogeyman, huh? Did he figure that out?"

Sam appeared grateful for the question. "Yes. Well, no. Kind of."

"Jesus."

"Okay, look, it's not something we have ever fought before. It's not in any of the usual books and, frankly, I'm not sure there's anything that we can relate to it. Basically, Dad called it a kind of 'planes walker.'"

"Planes? Of course, planes. I friggin'  _hate_  planes."

"What? No. Not that kind of plane. See, and this is where it gets complicated because it involves...supernatural physics." Sam thought a second and then shook his head back and forth a little, "But really, if you want to be technical, it's a re-imagining of quantum physics and string theory which is an actual thing you could study in college."

"Well, give me the cheat sheet version, because something about 'supernatural' and 'physics' in the same sentence doesn't seem right."

Sam raised his eyebrows and nodded in agreement. "No argument there, but that's the best way to describe it." He picked up a piece of paper and pointed to it. "Okay. Imagine that everything around you in this world that is here and solid exists with us on this plane. This...dimension. So, us, the car, this house, the table...everything that you can touch and that has mass exists with us. Following me?"

Dean shrugged his shoulders and nodded. "Okay?"

"Okay, but some of the things we deal with-like ghosts-they're made up of a spirit. A...a soul, maybe, if that's all true. Spirits don't have substance, and unless certain conditions are met, they can't actually be touched. Right?"

Dean narrowed his eyes. "Right?"

"Well, according to Dad's theory, that's because when we die, our body stays here in this plane, the material plane, and our soul slips into another plane entirely where we, I don't know, wait for a reaper to come usher us to the last plane we'll inhabit forever. That's why when a person dies, we don't see their spirit or the reaper, or anything else. We just see the body that was left behind."

"But we  _do_  see ghosts, Sam. So, how does the theory account for that?" Dean wasn't fully on board with this planes idea, but he had hitched a ride on the bumper and he wasn't going to let Sam slow down or stop now.

"Ghosts are the  _exception_. I mean, people don't appear as ghosts because they just want to watch another sunset. They've bent themselves towards something unfulfilled-they weren't ready to make the leap over to the other side. Ghosts are ghosts because they've exerted their will to hold onto an attachment in the material plane, and because that spirit lived in that body for its whole life, there's a pretty understandable connection. Dad called it 'an anchor point.'"

Dean stared at the table. This was some heavy stuff for Dad to just...never mention before. Or since.

"So, ghosts come back to the...'material plane' to do their white blanket moaning and wailing shtick until we destroy the anchor points?"

"Yes and no." Sam actually seemed proud of him for keeping up. Man, someone needed to settle down and remember who had been hunting longer. It wasn't like Dean had been born yesterday. And even if Dad never told Dean about theories and supernatural physics, Dean knew how to do his damn job.

"Enlighten me."

"The ghosts are technically still locked in whatever plane they're in after they've left here, but their plane and ours brush up against each other at infinite points. You can't really think of the 'ghost plane' as an actual  _place_  because if you did, you'd have to think of it as...somewhere else. But it actually exists with us, around us, like, a molecule away from us. It's just...shifted slightly."

Sam must have noticed his brother's blank face. His eyes lit up with an idea. "It's like white light. You see the light, you think nothing of the light. It's just...light, right? But when you put a prism in front of it, it splits into its wavelengths and you can actually see the different colors. The colors were all right there, we just can't perceive them normally-we need something to  _interfere_ with it, to interrupt it, to see it. It's the same thing with the plane ghosts exist on. Our eyes are designed to see the material plane, but that doesn't mean spirits don't actually exist in a plane beyond our sight."

"So..."

"So, anchor points have a strong connection with the spirit. An anchor point can be the thing that interrupts, that allows them to manipulate the material plane. The stronger the willpower of the spirit and the anchor, the more a ghost can affect the material plane."

"Holy shit," Dean said with wonder, "It's like that friggin'  _Ghost_  movie, with that  _Dirty Dancing_ guy," he snapped his fingers. "Patrick Swayze."

Sam blinked.

"You've seen  _Dirty Dancing_?"

Dean looked at him with disbelief.

"Dude, Jennifer Grey is smokin' hot in that movie."

His brother raised his eyebrows in  _that_ way and then shook his head.

"Okaaay. But, yeah. Patrick Swayze's character learned how to focus his connection to the..."

"Oh man, the penny scene..."

"What?"

"When he moves the penny under the door and Molly's like..."

Dean stopped.

Bobby, who had been quietly picking up papers, reading them, and listening to Sam's explanation finally intervened.

"I'll get you the tissues so you can blow your nose and dry your tears and  _can it_  so we can get through this. I love you like a son, Dean, but let the boy finish."

Dean cleared his throat again. "So burning the body removes the anchor point and the ghost can't do squat here anymore. I get that. And salt? Why does that do anything?"

It was Sam's turn to shake his head. "Dad thinks that the orderly stacked and particularly tight molecular composition of salt crystals is more material plane than a spirit can handle, and it disrupts a ghost's...disruption. Salt has been used as a purifying agent for thousands of years in dozens of cultures. Its applications have been around for a lot longer than science, but then again, so have most of the books on Bobby's shelves we use almost every day to hunt. I mean, think of what we've learned from Dad about the supernatural without scientific journals." Sam pointed at the table. "This was...this was breakthrough stuff, Dean. Dad was..."

Dean sighed. "Obsessed?"

"A genius."

Dean balked. Ugh no. Do not want to hear, not after everything. Not when Sam was only more hell-bent on finishing this thing that Dad didn't-wouldn't- finish himself. And, wow, there were so many things that he hadn't finished, like Yellow Eyes, for example, like taking care of him and Sam. Like being an actual father and not threatening his youngest kid's life even after death.  _Why_  did Sam need this so badly? Wasn't being saved from the boogeyman once enough?

Sam was still talking and Dean had to concentrate to come back to it.

"...It's frigid around a ghost because once they get a foothold through an anchor point, they need energy to manifest, and the vacuum of the heat lost in the process makes the 'cold spots.' And EMF detectors actually pick up the electromagnetic distortion caused by the two planes colliding. It's all here, Dean. Everything fits."

Sam's voice was worshipful. Dean wanted to choke. A few days ago Sam had tearfully, drunkenly, believed their father had brought him to a known monster feeding ground to dispose of the responsibility of having to deal with his son's demon-drenched "destiny" in the future. And now he was making an altar to the guy. It was all Dean could do to not sweep up everything into his arms and burn it all.

"And the boogeyman then. He lives on that ghost plane? Is that the connection? He can go back and forth and...drag kids back to snack on?"

"Exactly. Except that according to Dad, it doesn't exist on the usual ghost plane. Since the victims' bodies weren't found, whatever plane the boogeyman took them into can hold both physical and spiritual components, and that's not the same place we think of a usual haunting coming from. It's pretty much right here in Dad's journal pages."

_Found the journal pages. Happy now, Sam? Happy?_

"Hold up." Dean could feel himself getting pissed off. "So, what, there's  _another_  plane bumping up against ours? And this monster lives on  _that_  one with bodies and ghosts and maybe a few purple trees and a bubblegum sky? What the hell, Sammy, this is getting ridiculous."

Sam shifted his weight. "Why? Why is it actually so hard to believe that if there is one plane like this there aren't more? It's the physics of the thing, Dean-"

"That's just it, Sam. Physics is science, it's not ghosts. We don't gaze into microscopes and play with petri dishes, and if you ask me, this is all a load of crap. All this planes talk is crap. You're either here or you're gone. That's it. End of story."

Dean was breathing hard.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, Dean, in that case, explain to me where hell is."

Sam tilted his head while Dean tried to process the question.

"Where is hell? It's a simple question. Is it underground? Is it, I don't know, in Detroit? Where is it, Dean, because it has to exist. We  _know_  it exists. We see what comes out of it."

The elder Winchester's gut knotted and he slammed his hands onto the table top.

"Why the hell are you bringin' this up? Is the boogeyman a demon?" He could barely get the words out. His chest felt ready to explode or cave in.

"Answer my question first."

"No,  _you_  answer  _mine_  first, Sammy!" He swept several papers onto the floor. Fuck all of this...the boogeyman, demons, hell.  _Hell_.

Sam sighed.

"No. It's not."

Dean found he had been holding his breath and he exhaled. "Then why bring that up? Why?"

"Because hell is a plane too, Dean. Just like any of them. It's a plane with weak points and anchor points. Think about it. Summoning a demon is just a ritual that uses components to create an anchor point for a demon, but then that demon has to  _possess_   _a body_  so it can manipulate the material plane. And if hell can exist like that, then why can't other situations exist like that? Dean, science and the supernatural don't have to exist exclusively, you know. It's true, there are a lot of things we still have to just...take an ancient culture's word for, but all of this helped Dad figure out what we're dealing with here."

Dean calmed a bit. Because Sam said "we," not "I."  _We._

"Okay, let's say I start to buy this. Where does it get  _us_  with killing it?"

Sam's eyebrows drew together.

"Don't you want to know what the boogeyman has to do with ghosts and psychics?"

"Not really, no. I'd rather get to the killing part now if it's all the same to you." Dean nodded his head impatiently at Sam's expression. "No offense, but this ain't  _Reading Rainbow_  here, Sammy. I'm not gonna feel a sudden sense of accomplishment and delight thinking that monster can lurk  _a molecule_  away from me, all right? Get to the killing."

"Speak for yourself," Bobby intervened. He had finished collecting the papers Dean had knocked down and was picking up what looked to Dean like random pages from the table to scrutinize. Bobby had his own brand of "Hunter on the scent of knowledge" energy, and was in his own way a lot harder than Sam to shut down. Mostly because Bobby once pulled a shotgun on their father, and Dean hadn't forgotten that the older man was probably not someone to mess with.

"Bobby, come on, man."

"Dean, this is a lot of work here, and who knows what we might need in the future. If there's more than one of these bastard boogeyman creatures out there, then we have to add it all to the books sooner rather than later so we can start to recognize the signs. When you call me up for answers on the Way Weird, where do you think I get 'em? It ain't the Magic 8 Ball, that's for sure-it's from intel like this."

_Goddamit, Bobby, you don't know what's at stake here!_

Sam looked between Bobby and Dean and then said, "I'm glad to hear that, Bobby, because Dad kept referencing a book I've never seen and that I haven't been able to find here or anywhere. His notes said you had it. The  _Librum Terram_?"

It was Bobby's turn to blink.

"The 'Book of the Earth'?  _That_  thing?" And then his eyes opened and he nodded. "Yeah. Your Dad swung by a few times for that one. Asked to borrow it. Would spend all night with it in the panic room and then leave without explanation."

Sam laughed at that. It was an  _almost_  laugh. "Did he do that a lot?"

"So much so that it wasn't something you'd count as unusual. But the  _Librum Terram_   _is_  an unusual book. I'll be back."

Bobby left the room and Sam took a deep breath. He turned to Dean, all calm and academic and like he expected that everyone else in the room should just feel the same. But his eyebrows said he knew Dean was pissed.

"Dean, what is it?"

"Whatever do you mean, Sammy?" Dean's jaw locked in a forced smile about to go south.

"This," Sam indicated all of Dean from head to toe. "Why're you still so mad? This is progress. I mean, I know it might be hard to swallow right away, but this stuff here, it's what we've been looking for."

"No, it's what  _you've_  been looking for," Dean pointed at his chest. His brother looked down in dismay. " _You_ want this thing, Sam. I'm tellin' you, it's not gonna come after you because you're all grown up as everyone keeps telling me. It's done with you, it's over. It's moved on. Unless you're tryin' to  _make_  it come back to you."

Sam shook his head flabbergasted. "Are we seriously gonna have this argument again? We've gone through this a hundred times."

"Well, maybe I gotta bring it up one more time."

"Dean, you have no idea..."

"Why do I need to have an idea? If you would just stay  _out_ of it, Sammy, just let it go, we could get on with our lives on the  _material plane_."

Sam finally bridled. "Oh, this from the guy who's so good at letting go."

Dean's blood pressure hurt the soft spots in his skull.

"What's _th_ _at_ supposed to mean?"

Sam was about to respond when Bobby slammed a large and obviously ancient text on the table in front of them, startling them both.

"The  _Librum Terram_  as requested. The author was as close to a lunatic as you can get without being the Mad Arab, but there's just enough  _our_ kind of crazy that it's worth having around."

Dean squinted at the older man.

"Mad Arab?"

"Supposedly he wrote the  _Necronomicon_ ," Sam supplied.

Bobby thumbed back the way he had come. "Lovecraft said he made it up, but the original is downstairs if you ever feel a need for some heavy reading. I don't suggest it."

Dean had no idea what they were talking about.

In the meantime, Sam studied the cover of the book. The style looked like a few other texts Dean had seen once or twice in this library, but as they were all written in Latin, he hadn't done much more than appreciate the colored pages of illumination before he passed it off to Sam or Bobby in search of pictures that were more his style (usually in the magazines he brought back from the gas station).

But someone was clearly turned on.

"Oh my God, Bobby. How'd you get this?" Sam breathed.

"Long story. It's one of a kind, all right. Was secretly written in the middle ages by a monk named Brother Luciano who had, among other problems, some pretty interesting dreams."

Dean didn't like the connotation of that word.

"Interesting like how? Like sitting on a toilet in the middle of Fenway Park interesting?"

Sam made a sound in the back of his throat. Bobby just stared at him.

"No, ya idjit. Like being a damn cosmic antenna and picking up the laments of people in hell and the sighs of the saved in heaven."

Sam's face went blank. "What did you just say?"

But Dean got it. "That girl. That boogeyman victim..." He snapped his finger.

"Emily," Sam supplied softly.

"That's it. Didn't you say that she-"

"Could hear the screams of the damned. Dean, this is the guy Dad's notes say first wrote about ghost physics and planes walkers..." Sam searched the table and then came up with a page covered in scrawl which he scanned. "Here it is. 'Brother Luciano hypothesized that physical movement between two planes was possible under the right conditions and between the right planes.' Dad went on to say that Luciano was always trying to reach the voices he could hear in heaven and hell, but believed those planes could not support a physical body."

"Hey, no offense, but don't schizophrenics also hear messed up voices? I mean, this guy sounds like a total nut job to begin with." Dean flipped the pages. "He could have been a decent cartoonist, though."

He could feel the Sam scowl.

_Suck it, Sammy._

Sam cleared his throat. "He also accurately predicted the fire that claimed the lives of sixteen fellow monks in 893, and a flood that took out their south wall and drowned three monks in 896."

Dean stopped leafing through the book. "Lucky?"

"Dean, he wasn't lucky, he was  _psychic_. According to Dad, he was  _the_  psychic, and he chronicled his hunts in this book."

"He was a hunter?" Now Sam had his attention.

Bobby nodded. "If you believe this stuff is real, he's one of the first to keep track of his exploits. Unfortunately, if ya read the book, he wasn't right about the monsters he chased fifty percent of the time. Probably caused a lot of harm in the process, but he was definitely tilted from the things going on in his head and what he could and couldn't discuss in his monastery or risk gettin' toasted alive himself."

Dean shook his head and squinted his eyes, "Bobby, if you've had this book all this time, how come we never got a heads up about all of this stuff before?"

Bobby took a deep breath, "Look, in case you haven't noticed, this ain't the Library of Congress.  _Credible_  isn't a word we can use most of the time with any resource we got. Plenty of people who write about monsters are half the time as crazy as you say. And they rarely give any footnotes to boot. Research in this world is more art than card catalog, if you catch my meaning. John Winchester was a right bastard in some ways, but he could do this. And so can Sam, apparently. This was just a lot of mad rambling before your daddy and Sam put it all together with this boogeyman stuff."

Sam blinked, looked taken aback by the compliment. Well,  _bravo for you, Sammy._  More and more like Dad everyday...

Bobby went on. "Brother Luciano tried to categorize other people like him. He called them  _Receptores Divina_ , the Divine Receivers, people who were blessed with the ability to access knowledge about, and subsequently potentially affect, other planes."

Dean balked. "Let me get this straight. This guy thought he was  _blessed_?"

Sam was visibly stung. "Look, Dean, I'll cut through it all. Brother Luciano's theory was that the more psychic a person was, the better their chance to contact and manipulate planes other than the material plane. So, remember how ghosts can bump up against the material plane from wherever they are given the right anchor and motivation?"

"Yeah, Sam, I can remember back five minutes..."

Sam's energy jumped five notches as he apparently tried to drum the importance into his skull. "Luciano thought that psychics could learn to feel that same bump from the material plan to others and even if they couldn't travel to it, they could tap into it, move things, just like the damn penny in  _Ghost._ In fact, he claimed to be able to put a ghost to rest just with his damn  _mind_."

Dean sighed hotly. "Okay. Fine. So what does it have to do with the boogeyman?"

Sam picked up another paper. "Well, for one thing, that particular monster doesn't have the market cornered on trying to create humans with psychic talents."

"Let me guess. Demons do too, right? But why, Sam?"

"That's what Dad was researching when he stumbled across the boogeyman. Or...the references to it. He was trying to backwards engineer what Yellow Eyes was doing, what his plan was."

"Awesome. What does he write about  _that?"_

Sam's face fell. "Nothing."

"What?"

"Nothing, Dean. He...in all of this stuff, he avoided any mention of it. It's strictly boogeyman business." It was hard to be mad at the kid when he looked like that, his eyes still searching papers as if the missing information was close, somewhere. Here.

"Of course. Bobby, did Dad ever leave any suspicious envelopes for me?" Not that he believed it, but...

Bobby shook his head. "Sorry. No more magic keys."

Sam gently opened the  _Librum Terram_  to a page referenced on a sheet of notebook paper. "Brother Luciano investigated a noble family in Rome who kept...losing children. Every seven years. It was actually easy to track because the family had been living in mostly the same location for eight generations. Luciano had already been cataloging the names of people in the family who were  _Receptores Divina_  like him when he fell onto a pattern. The kids taken were family, servant, or visitor, no discrimination. And they didn't have the exact same birthday, but they were all born in the same month."

Bobby's face went slack. "The Giovanni incident. Holy crap...that?  _That_  thing? That's been chronicled in two other books, but I never made the connection..."

"You two seriously oughtta get a room, you know that?" Dean huffed. "So, Luciano encountered the first reported boogeyman?"

"Yeah, he described it as..." Sam stopped at a page and began doing that magical thing he did where he read something in Latin and it turned into English. "'A creature neither demonic nor angelic who fed upon the intense vapors of black bile in a child.'"

"Seriously? I need a translator for the translator." Dean looked at the ceiling.

Sam reached for the explanation. "Medieval theory of humors. Short story is that people with a lot of 'black bile' were miserable, light sleepers prone to many fears."

"Oh, well, I'm starting to see the connection with you."

"Funny."

"You think I'm joking?" Dean waved his hand, "so, God, are we gettin' to the end here? Did Brother Luciano gank this thing or what?"

Sam nodded. "He thinks so, anyway. It took him 21 years to do it, and it's not certain whether it actually worked, but the book doesn't report anymore deaths in that household again."

"Not exactly proof. So, let's get to the million dollar question, already. How do you  _kill_  it?"

Sam took a deep breath.

"The boogeyman steps onto our plane, it's vulnerable to actions we would take to kill anything else on this plane."

Dean blinked.

"Seriously? Like. Just. Shoot it in the head?"

_Holy crap. All those years ago..._

"Well, maybe," Sam began. "I mean, a shot to the head would kill a  _human_ and a few other baddies, but we actually don't have any information on what, exactly, is a kill shot for this thing."

"So?"

"So, gotta burn it just to be sure. Or something pretty extreme."

"Awesome."

"Okay, but it's not that easy because apparently the boogeyman has some kind of connection with the human mind. It can create your worst nightmare if it gets close enough. In fact, since it feeds on 'black bile,' chances are that stirring up a person's fear is its ultimate weapon. And since it goes after psychic kids who already have a lot going on up there, it's pretty effective."

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. "So, that fits the one piece of lore consistent through all the tales of the boogeyman, that it feeds off of a kid's fear."

"Exactly."

_Jesus, Dad. How much of this did you already know when you put that gun in Sam's hand?_

Dean made an exaggerated motion of rolling his eyes and throwing his arms into the air. "So, you couldn't just skip all the ghost physics and get to  _this_  in the first place?"

Sam stared at Dean, his jaw slack.

"What?"

"Because, Dean, we're dealing with something that's been out of every hunter's league for, like, ever. I mean, literally.  _No one_  but this Brother Luciano guy has tried to fight it, and there are all kinds of holes in his narrative. Dad didn't want us to go in empty-handed, but even he could only get so far." Sam was getting worked up. His voice had a certain kind of quality when he got like this-kinda deeper. He had a big set of lungs and Dean knew when Sam was just shy of yelling, trying to hold it in.

"This isn't a werewolf or a vampire or a shapeshifter, okay? This thing has creepy mind powers and the ability to just walk right off the earth, man. Are you serious about staying safe on this job or do you wanna risk being a victim? We have to  _know the enemy,_  Dean."

 _Oh yeah, Sam. Throw a few more of Dad's lines out while you're at it._  But Sam was saying a lot of  _we_  and not  _me._ He said  _you_  and not  _me._  That was a line Dean would encourage if Sam was going to keep this up-was going to insist on it.

"Okay, okay. Whatever. Fine. Okay, so. To kill it, it has to be on our...plane, and then you gotta burn it or nuke it before it can zap a crazy into your head? Is that it? Like a shootout at high noon?"

Sam let out a heavy breath. He took one in.

"Yeah, something like that."

"And this...Brother Luciano guy. He did this and it worked?"

Pause.

"Dean, I told you, I'm doing this."

Dean's eyes narrowed. Red lights in his head began to beam warnings. "Answer the question, Sam."

"That's what the book indicates, yes." Sam was emphatic.

"And you're  _sure_  that whatever he did  _actually_  killed the thing?" Dean pushed.

Suddenly Sam stopped making eye contact.

"What? What aren't you telling me?" But Dean was really good at jumping to conclusions. "Wait. Did Luciano even  _live_ after that?"

Bobby and Sam exchanged a less-than happy glance and Dean turned away, throwing his hands into the air. "Oh, come  _on_ , guys..."

"He was at least 62." Sam supplied quickly. "Pretty decent lifespan considering the time period."

"Time period nothing," Bobby interjected. "No one knows what happened to him. His best friend, Father Antonio, ended the book by saying he was just...gone."

* * *

Dean became silent after that.

Sam and Bobby conversed and debated over why the boogeyman chose Osseo, Wisconsin and May second. They theorized about the actual nature of the place the creature came from. They looked at papers and leaned over the table and pointed at things and made notations.

It required a drink.

It wasn't hard to find a bottle of whiskey in this place and Dean took up space on a chair, propped his feet on the table ledge. He listened and filled a glass.

Filled it up over and over and no one noticed and no one cared. Sammy looked like he was putting together a science fair project. A  _serious_  fucking science fair project, but Sammy always took projects seriously.

And it should have been a relief that Sam was so good at this stuff, that he was Mr. Attention-To-Detail, except what he was planning was exactly what he said he was planning: to try to take on a thing no reputable hunter really knew about and that had already  _been in his head for two weeks_ when he was a kid. Making him scream for Dean and talk about dying. And Sam swore he couldn't remember anything about that time, but that just meant that as prepared as Sam would be to fight this thing, he'd never be  _all the way_  prepared.

And it pissed Dean off.

And it scared the shit out of him.

When Sam cleaned up their father's stuff, slapped Dean's feet in a brotherly "hey, good talk" kind of way and retreated back to his room to do whatever, Dean numbly watched him go.

It required a bottle.

Make that two bottles.

By the time Dean stumbled to Sam's door an hour later, he was fully loaded for a battle of his own. This wasn't the way to cope, no, but Dean didn't know a better one at the moment with nothing he could do to  _stop all this_ , and the alcohol in the house had at least been plentiful.

And the first thing he was pissed about was this separate room crap. Never mind the fact that Bobby had plenty of rooms. Since when did they need separate bedrooms? Unless Sam was fucking hiding something. Unless he was.

Dean's boot hit the door. Accurately. It cracked and swung open. His little brother looked up sharply from his bed, hunched over a tri-folded piece of paper clutched in both hands like a life preserver.

Sam's expression went from adrenaline charged to that priceless little bitchy "what the hell are you doing?" look in about two seconds flat. He quickly refolded the paper and shoved it into his pocket.

Nope. Nothing to hide here.

"How much have you had?"

"Not enough, Sammy, not enough." He flapped his hands to the side. "Mind if I come in? You know, since you needed to have your  _own room_."

_God Sammy, aren't you all out of sad little sighs by now?_

Sam stood up and Dean had to refocus. Jesus, Sam was a tall SOB.

"Dean, man. Are you mad about  _that_? I just thought, take advantage of the opportunity. You know? A chance to spread out?"

"Like how you  _spread out_  and took a hike to California for four years?" Dean retorted.

Sam stopped in his tracks and his expression did a 180 from concerned to annoyed.

_Making progress there, Sammy._

"If you're coming here to argue, then no thanks. I know what happens when we argue and you're drunk."

"Oh? What happens, Sam?"

"You break things and we get into a brawl," Sam answered as calmly as he could. "Dean, just go to bed. We can talk in the morning about it."

Dean made a face and shook his head. "Maybe I wanna break things and get into a brawl, huh? Maybe that's the point. Come on, when was the last time we had a good brawl? Why not one last one for old time's sake, huh?" Why was his vision this blurry. He ran his hand over them, to clear them, and his fingers came away wet. What the hell, had he missed his mouth when he tossed that last shot back?

Something stopped Sam, though. Dean didn't like that pitying look. Didn't like it at all. Definitely a step backward.

"Dean, I'm not going to do this to die."

"Oh, really? That's funny. You know, I tell you that the last thing Dad says to me before he  _buys_  me back with his  _soul_  is that I may have to kill you, and then he goes and gives you the 'treasure' map with X marks the spot on top of the fucking monster that almost killed you once." Dean's shoulders slumped. Why did he have to break things down into itty bitty pieces for that great big brain Sam had? "You go off and do this and there's no guarantee that you're comin' back."

Sam half smiled, and that pitying look again? Yeah,  _that_  needed to stop.

"He's not trying to kill me. Dad knew...knew that I wanted to do this. He knew it was something only I could do, and, look, he found other things besides Brother Luciano's stuff. He thought I could beat this thing, Dean." Sam's adorable little "I'm a big boy" face was too damn much.

"Yeah? He did when you were nine too. And look how well things turned out then."

Sam's expression let his brother know he had taken the first jab beneath the belt. Hey, reality was a bitch, but reality was reality.

"I'm not that kid anymore."

"I know, and you know what? That sucks." Dean nodded his head at Sam's narrowed eyes. "It sucks, Sammy, because you used to be a good kid. You used to do what you were told, stay out of things if I said 'stay out,' but then you started askin' questions..."

"Dean, are you mad at me because I  _grew up?_  Listen to yourself..."

"I'm mad because I told you to blame me, to get past it, but fourteen years later you want to ride out into the sunset in your Big Boy pants and risk everything when you  _don't have to_. I'm mad about  _that_."

Sam took a deep breath and hazarded a step closer like Dean was some skittish chipmunk that might or might not want a little treat. So when his brother tried to put his hand on his shoulder, Dean pushed it off. With venom.

"Dean, you want me to blame you, but I can't and I won't. The truth is that I had a chance to stop it and I gave it up, and someone  _died_ because of it. I wanted to pass off the responsibility, and I know now that was wrong. I did too much of that. I did too much leaning on you."

That hurt. It hurt so bad and Dean didn't know why, but he wanted Sam to take the first swing. He was going to  _make_  him this time.

"Dammit, it wasn't  _wrong_. You were nine-years-old!"

"But someone  _died_. Someone died, Dean. And...and I think I can maybe save her."

There was a beat as Dean tried to process this new revelation. What the hell now?  _Save_  her? That girl from fourteen years ago? He had to be kidding.  _Had_  to be. But no, Sam was serious. Look at that face-the cuddly Serious-Sammy face, the hopeful serious one. Was  _this_  the bright idea had helped this stupid kid sleep at night even though, oh right, that girl's ghost was  _haunting him?_

Dean's heart pounded. His fists clenched reflexively.

"I don't get it. Is that...is that supposed to be a point on your side of the argument or mine, Sammy, because it sounds even more ridiculous now." Every ounce of bitter sarcasm was riding in that.

Sam shook his head and turned away, and yeah, he was getting actually angry. Good.

"You know what? Forget it. I don't know what I'm doing trying to reason with you right now. I shouldn't have said anything about it at all."

"Why? Gonna start  _hiding_ stuff now? Is that the solution? Sam, that bitch has been working you over inside for fourteen years, whether she was in your closet or not. You carry around that stupid thing and all it does is drag on your soul. I should've burned it a long time ago. You knew her for  _two days_ , Sam!"

Sam took a deep breath and his eyes were alight. "It doesn't matter! You heard her mother. She believed in me. She  _believed_  in me, and I let her die. And now I have a chance to go stop it, stop this creature from causing anymore kids to almost die, to maybe free her from that other place. I have a chance to actually set it right, to follow through the way I didn't. It's not just a chance, either. This is  _it_ , and  _I_  am the only one who can do it because I'm the one that can draw it out."

Dean smacked his forehead. "Are you the dumbest kid brother on the planet? Did you hear any of your three-hour masters lecture in that room?" He pointed vaguely towards the library. Maybe. Or the kitchen. Whatever. "The boogeyman  _uses_  ghosts to almost  _kill_  people. It can do all of that fancy planes walking and bumping and interrupting and using the souls of its victims to make  _more_  victims. Your own words. That bitch is gonna get you killed, Sam."

Sam made a fist. He made two fists. That's right, little brother, the truth  _hurts_ , doesn't it?

"What about the others, Dean? If no one stops this, then more kids will die. More kids may end up like Emily, hearing the 'screams of the damned.' How...how could I possibly find a way to make myself okay with leaving them to die or worse? Think of all the children it's taken. In a few weeks another boy or girl is gonna be  _exactly_  where I was fourteen years ago-tired, terrified...and maybe there's  _no one_  to save them. Maybe, like Amber, they just disappear and leave that gaping hole for another mother. What if it had taken  _me_ , Dean?"

Nope. No. Not gonna think about it, care about them, fall into this hippy compassion loving-the-world-of-strangers crap. Not right now.  _Not when I drank so hard to not think about what I would do if you never came back. Suck it, Sammy._

"Those kids are long gone, Sam. I'm not throwing a party over it, but that's facts." Dean stepped into his brother's space, his voice low. Condescending. "This boogeyman son of a bitch is an NFL quarterback and you're still in the hometown touch-tag little league team with orange slices at half time. You couldn't take the shot then, and you can't take the shot now."

 _Crack_.

Dean's head spun toward the wall. It didn't hurt enough, that punch, but it was a start. When he got his bearings and looked back at his brother, Sam's hair was in his face. His eyes had started to leak. His fist was still half in the air, still clenched, and Sam looked at it like it was a traitor, like it had moved on its own without any help from him. He shook his head and, damn, he looked like a sorry SOB.

"Why couldn't you, for once, back me up on something instead of pulling me away from things. Always pulling me away,  _making_  you take the burden,  _making_  you take the responsibility. You hold me out to show me something, how to be better, and before I can even prove to you that I can do it, you throw me back into the corner."

Tears streaked his cheeks. He was a crybaby. A bitch. He was such a mess. Such a suicidal little mess. And the hell was all of this crap?

Dean grabbed Sam's shirtfront. It was easy, really easy, because it looked like the fight had just gone right out of him. Was that good or bad? Would he just be an obedient kid now?

"You don't get a friggin' Honorable Mention trophy for fighting out of your weight class, Sam. You get  _dead._ Is that your plan? _"_

Sam shook his head morosely and clamped onto his brother's wrist, hard. "You don't get it. I'm not just doing this for me or Amber. I'm doing this for you. For Dad. For all of us. When I beat it, when I  _prove_  that I  _have_  changed, that I can take the shot, then I won't become...that  _thing._  I'll take another path. And you have to face the fact that Dad knew something we didn't, and that if you don't let me do this, you're gonna have to shoot me someday. You are gonna have  _kill me_ , Dean, because  _you promised_!"

The red exploded behind Dean's eyes. Sam's face felt solid. His stomach felt soft.

And then the pain started and the fists flew. There were some headshots and gut shots, and ugh, yeah, that familiar feeling of having the wind knocked out as he slammed back into a bookshelf. It was a panicky feeling, but Dean wasn't panicking because he couldn't breathe-nope, that wasn't the problem at all. And he grabbed a fistful of Sam's hair and bounced their foreheads together. That had a strange ringing sound, and then it was a blurr and Sam had definitely gotten a bit better at the brawl part of this, maybe. Good for you, Sammy. Use that height to your advantage. It'll keep you alive someday if you didn't kill yourself with crazy crusades first.  _Stay alive, little brother._

And then everything was black and still.

* * *

Dean opened his eyes and sat up. Oh yeah. Bad move. Head. Head hurting. Jaw hurting.

"What time is it?"

"Tomorrow."

"What?" His eyes were drawn to the broken door as Bobby walked into the room with a glass of water and a bottle of Tylenol. Dean glanced around, Sam's borrowed bed, and it was a wreck-a knock down, drag out...

_What the hell happened in here?_

And then he remembered.

"Sam? Sammy!" He pushed the wave of nausea down and willed his cranium not to explode as he got to his feet.

"Don't bother."

"What? Why?"

"Sam left last night after your old school WWF Monday Night Raw bout." Bobby made a noise that sounded like a mixture of dismay, disappointment, and sadness. "Do something intelligent for once. Take the pills and get yourself together."

Dean obeyed part one, but the Tylenol wasn't even down his throat before he was saying, "Gotta find him. He could be 600 miles from here by now." Dean grabbed his cell phone to call the phone company. "Let me borrow your computer."

"I said, don't bother."

"What?"

Bobby sighed and pointed at the desk where five cell phones, every single one Sam had, were neatly arranged on the desk.

"Son of a bitch," he breathed. Suddenly his head wasn't the only thing hurting. "Sammy!" He had to yell it.

Think. Would he be making a beeline for Osseo now? No. That's where he'd be in three weeks but not now. Maybe the Roadhouse? But that was an easy bet and he would be thinking whatever Dean was thinking and pointedly  _not_  do that just to be a bitch. And once upon a time Sam was possessed by a  _demon_  and ran off and Dean couldn't find him for weeks  _then_  either.

"Did he take my car?" He turned toward Bobby who was inspecting his beaten door frame.

"Still the same, you boys. Nothin' has changed in ten years except the amount of my stuff you can bust up."

"Bobby!...Forget it." Dean tried to push his way past the door, but a steady and wiry arm stopped him.

"Sam called in about five hours ago, Dean. He's comin' back eventually. Told me to lock up the liquor and keep you here."

Dean shook his head, keeping the panic at bay with some difficulty. "Sam's not comin' back. He's on this 'mission from God,' and he's gunning it alone and this scenario can only end in a smoking crater."

"And whose fault is that?" Bobby's voice was hard, but he dropped his hand. "Which one of you threw the first punch?"

Dean inhaled.

_Sharp pain, left temple. Jaw bruised. And Sammy's face all covered with tears, shrouded with disbelief, with sorrow. With shame._

He let the breath out.

"I did."

Bobby peered at him seriously, made a face and then shook his head once. "I'm willin' to wait out 24 hours on Sam. He said he needed some time alone to cool his head and you needed to dry out. In the meantime, I've got wood and nails and a hammer and hangover or not, you're gonna put my room together. The work will do you good, give you something to do, and keep you from staring at my phone all damn day."

Bobby clapped a reassuring and comforting hand on Dean's shoulder.

"Sam will come back, son. Ain't nothin' you can do to figure things out until he does, so let it go."

The desk with the phones so carefully arranged from largest to smallest caught his eye again. He used to pick on his brother for that, for the OCD. Now Dean found he was starting to make bargains with that God whose name he always took in vain-the God whom he figured was just some nice character in a Sammy fantasy world.

_I swear I'll never give him shit about it again if you just send him home..._

* * *

"...With pie..." Sam handed Dean the bag. "And..."

"Porn?" Dean pulled the newest issue of  _Busty Asian Beauties_  from the bag.

"Um...yeah." Sam looked tired as hell, but he was actually  _here._  He was in one piece. He was looking sad but hopeful. His hands were in his pockets, and his gaze went from Dean's boots to his face.

Searching for something to prove the fight was over.

As big brothers went, Dean knew he was an ass-Sam had a black eye, a cut lip. Dean had pushed Sam into that fight and here he was with pie and porn like it was fucking Christmas.

Dean put his hand on Sam's face, just to examine that shiner. That was all. Sam didn't flinch. He sighed. His shoulders visibly relaxed.

Dean tried to make sure his own face in  _no way_  expressed how fucking relieved he was. The scowl he projected at his prodigal brother was customary, a standard fallback. But he knew this last disappearance was on him. Yes, Sam was an idiot and the real root of the issue-Sam's unwavering persistence to fight the boogeyman-hadn't changed, but Dean knew better if his goal had been to keep Sam around. He had known better, once, before the desperation had really gotten a hold of him. This wouldn't be resolved between them, just managed. Managed until May 3. And then, it would be over.

Whatever happened, in a little less than three weeks, it would be over.

"Bobby, about the room. I'm sorry." Sam pursed his lips and looked at Bobby contritely.

"Cleared out and cleaned up. You know the rules-first punch, cleanup. 'Haymaker' over here can hang a door as well as clean a carburetor."

Sam's face was all confused. Jesus, so  _obvious_. Dean cleared his throat to distract their mentor away. "Yeah, doors are easy. Door frames are a bitch. Where'd you go?"

Sam took a calm breath, tilted his head in a small nod, "Just drove...to the University."

"The University of Sioux Falls?" Dean blinked.

His brother shrugged slightly.

"Dude, that's like, eight minutes from here..." his voice trailed off in amazement.

"Fifteen minutes when I drive," Sam responded sullenly.

Dean's mouth was open. "You were fifteen minutes away...for 32 hours? You left every phone!"

"I called..."

"Dude, what in the hell?"

Sam started to say something and then shrugged again. Afraid of another fight, Dean could see it. "Uh...they had a cafe? With WiFi?"

_Seriously?_

"I may yet punch you," Dean mumbled, pointed a warning index finger at his brother, but it sounded more like, "I'm glad you're here." He turned around to go find a goddamn fork to eat this goddamn pie from a goddamn brother who was gonna pay for this, oh yeah. As soon as he was done with the pie he was gonna bend the door hinge he just fixed so it squeaked. Would drive Sam  _crazy_...

"Dean," Sam's hand on his arm paused him. "Hey..."

Dean stopped. It took him a second to face his brother, but when he did, they both knew what was coming next.

"Just promise you won't go back to Osseo on your own, Sammy. Swear it."

Sam licked his bottom lip, found something on the wall with his gaze, and then turned back. "I swear I won't go back on my own."

"Good. I'm gonna eat this pie and drink a beer, and then you're gonna get to the actual killing of this thing. No more fascinating background and crazy monks, okay? I want whatever actual strategy we're pinning your life on. Got it?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah. It's time for that talk."

Dean's eyebrows twitched with a dark memory.

" _It's time, Sam."_

_Dad..._

It was coming full circle.

(to be continued...OMG BACK TO THE NOWWWWWW are you EXCITED!?)


	15. "Enter Sandman"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam goes to confront the boogeyman. In a flashback, Dean gets some pretty bad news...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings. Long wait, but the climax is upon us. Nothing long-winded here except a thank you to my muse/partner in SPN fan fic crime, Agelade. Who remains awesome.
> 
> We begin the end of this little tale with a refresher back to chapter 1...and then...it's time.
> 
> -Caladrius

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

 

**Then (from the end of chapter 1)...**

"Uh, Sammy..." His voice sounds funny even in his own head, "...either there are...two burgers here...or I was just roofied by my own brother..." He swings his head in a wide wobbly arc to look at Sam, but it's dark in the Impala. Super dark.

"I'm learning the lessons, Dean."

"You little...son of a bitch..." He feels his legs kinda just let go and he slumps a little. It doesn't hurt, no, but,  _goddammit Sam!_

Sam's voice is closer to him as his vision gets darker.

"Dean, you probably won't remember this, and I swear, when I come back, you can punch me. A couple times. Hell, as much as you want. I won't blame you, but you need to know this..."

 _Dammit, Sam. Grab him._  But Dean's arms are leaden.

"You're my brother and I love you. And I know you want me to blame you so you can get in on this, make it an  _us_ thing, but I can't. I can't blame you.  This is mine, and I have to handle it. It's time, Dean."

Those words again.

" _It's time."_

_Ah fuck, Sammy. I'm not letting you do this alone! Stay alive, do you hear me? Stay alive!_

"I'm coming back, Dean. I can do it now. I'm ready. Just wait for me."

_Darkness._

**_Now..._ **

**May 1, 2007**

**Sam 23**

**Dean 28**

It's now.

_It's time._

Sam steps back and does a mental checklist. He's surrounded the Impala with every protective circle and sigil-obscure or not-that he knows. The forecast is calling for calm, clear skies and the salt circle surrounding his sleeping brother is thick and intact. Sam has strewn the impala with blessed mala beads, crucifixes, pentacles, and the rest of the collection he has been hastily procuring on the side for weeks.

Right now, though he doesn't know it, Dean is about to have probably the most protected night's sleep of his life.

And that's how it should be, because it isn't worth it if Sam can't protect his big brother for once.

_He's going to kick my ass to the west coast when he wakes up._

Sam smiles, because imagining that is imagining a tomorrow where this is all  _done_  and the thing is in the past.

Sam picks up the duffle bag that has what he needs and walks towards room 23. He turns back one last time at the door. Dean is slumped down, his head resting on his right shoulder.

_Sorry, Dean. I'm sorry, but if it comes-when it comes-it's only coming for me. And I have to keep it that way. No more mistakes._

He nods one last time to himself and turns to the door.

It barely takes any force to get the door open. The smell inside is like the smell of a dozen other old, damp, abandoned places that he and Dean have visited on their hunts in the previous two years. Odd how the smell of this place, though, still has something clinging to it of his past. It's faint, under a layer of rotting paint and wood, but it's there, and it calls strongly.

Sam sets to work with a large bag of salt. He lines the windows and doors. Demons told him to stop poking around the boogeyman, and demons might know exactly where he is, but they aren't getting inside tonight-they can't stop this. After a brief inspection that at least reveals no rips in what's left of the carpet that might undermine its effectiveness, Sam pulls out a can of red spray paint and redecorates with a devil's trap. Just in case.

Now, if only the room itself holds up for a few more hours. Dean hadn't totally exaggerated the dilapidated shape of the place that warned of serious structural damage. When it comes to how things are made and how things work, Dean has the far better understanding, and the creaks that reverberate from floor to wall with Sam's careful footsteps remind him that he probably shouldn't stick around longer than he has to.

Once the place is as secure as it's going to be, Sam turns his attention towards the interior.

Somewhere light is creeping in through broken blinds - a streetlight, the moon. It's enough to feel the shape of this place molding back to him. Sam steps gently across the boards of faded carpet. His eyes, invariably, are fixed on one point: that closet at the far end, near the door to the bathroom.

It's closed, but it's still a closet. It hasn't completely succumbed to time and wear and weather, and that means something.

It means that  _it_ could definitely come back.

Sam opens the closet. It's still there, the cot he lay on fourteen years ago. It's rusty, but Sam is strong, and he's able to pull it out. The inside of the closet contains a few scraps of ruined clothing, eaten by mice or rats. Twisted wires of ancient hangers make a muted clink as Sam bends down with the salt. Heart pounding, small flashlight clamped between his teeth, he carefully and methodically shakes a significant line of the purifying crystals around the inside of the closet. There is a rhythm in his blood pounding out the seconds, the minutes. He's going to finally make it right. He's going to finish it. He is afraid, yes, but he isn't going to run or hide behind anything or anyone anymore. The fear will bring it back to him, and then he has to end it.

When the trap is primed, Sam stands and closes the closet door with a note of finality.

The plan is simple. Ridiculously simple, actually-even more simple than ending a ghost...in theory: Lure the boogeyman back with Luciano's extremely easy candle ritual, keep it from getting out of the closet with the salt line, blow the shit out of it with the shotgun to stun it, end it with a special hot-burning molotov cocktail, and then get the hell out of the room.

Sam isn't entirely sure that the salt line will keep the boogeyman in the closet, not totally, but Dad's notes said it was the best bet to buy a little time. It might not matter, though, because Sam is going to have the gun at the ready this time, and this time he won't hesitate to shoot the bastard in its shiny, scary eye.

The plan is simple, yes, but Sam's not going into this fight without a few precautions. He pulls out several things from his duffle and sets them on the bed closest to the closet.

The first two items are two shotguns. Dean himself had cleaned them and loaded them the night before thinking he'd be in this room doing this. They were as deadly as they'd ever be.

Next, Sam pulls out a familiar wooden pencil box. SAM WINCHESTER is still engraved deeply into the top. In the watery light from the small flashlight, Sam runs his fingers over the intricate design of old Winchester stock that took Dean weeks to finish-his 10th birthday present that he received almost on this very day 14 years ago, in this exact spot. Sam had kept it, used it, and whenever he slid it open at Stanford, at a random library in Anytown, USA, it never ceased to remind him of something he had to remember: at one point, Dean thought he was worth this work. It is a memento of their rocky but close childhood.

Dad's instructions were for Sam to make himself an anchor. Just in case. Something that would tie Sam to this plane to keep him safe from boogeyman abduction, and that's why the pencil box has achieved a new level of importance now. John's letter was vague about what form that anchor should take because Dad never knew Sam and admitted it. He didn't know him when he wrote the instructions, and he didn't know him when he was 23. But after all of the research he had assembled from his father's notes, Sam had a fairly good idea of what was needed for his anchor.

He and Dean have few personal possessions, and almost all of them are replaceable and have been replaced. There is no point in getting attached to things when they have to live out of a car and sometimes leave places pretty fast.

But this pencil box is a steady, ever-present thing because it has value beyond its use- it's symbolic of Dean in every carved line. Because of that, Sam has protected it, polished it, held it often. He told Dean about the plan, of course, because Dean had to believe he was in on everything or he'd have found a way to keep Sam from the precious six hour window that the boogeyman had to make his travel to the material plane. But Sam didn't tell him what he'd been putting into the pencil box or Dean probably would have been creeped out. At the very least it would have been an awkward conversation.

Dean's hairs from the shower drain, for example. Kind of weirdly fetishist-probably would have gotten an eyebrow raise. A few nuts and bolts from one of the bins in Bobby's garage of parts that had been collected from the Impala after its almost total destruction ten months ago. Dean wouldn't miss these unless he had seen them in the box, and then he would have complained loudly. The fingernail clippings were probably overkill, but the fact of the matter is that unless it actually came from Dean's body or his beloved car, it couldn't have a strong enough connection with his brother, and that's what Sam needed-an anchor to Dean. Dean who is here. Dean who is completely safe right out front, who will be waiting to kick his ass 100 ways from Sunday in the morning. Because Dean is all Sam has, too.

Sam sighs. He squeezes his eyes shut. He does feel guilty-that look on Dean's face when he had figured out Sam had drugged him. The betrayal.

"Dammit." Sam whispers. If he could, at any time, have convinced Dean that he could do this, he wouldn't have had to resort to some powder on his cheeseburger. But Sam gets it, in a way-Dean has been programmed to keep Sam out of danger, and John Winchester's programming had been effective if not completely unfair to his brother. To both of them.

_Dad._

Sam reaches into his pocket and pulls out the letter that started out "Dear Sammy." It did. It actually said "Dear" in his father's handwriting next to his own name, and Sam had to believe that no one was holding him at gunpoint to do it, because he left it in a secret package of research for Sam to find.

In its own way, the letter is part of his protection-It gives Sam courage. There are things in this letter that are unbelievable because they contain words of explanation and contrition: two things his father was never known for giving. Ever. So, Sam has to read it one last time even though he's memorized it.  _Seeing_  the words there make it real. But it hurts because  _dammit, Dad. Why couldn't you have said any of this to my face?_

Sam draws a breath, folds the letter back up and pushes it into his pocket where he's been carrying it every day since he opened it.

Finally, Sam reaches into the duffle and pulls out a small brown box with whittled marks of his own. Dean had never found out where Sam had stashed this, but Sam hadn't been dumb enough to think Dean would stop looking for it after the first night. He had a pretty careful system of moving it around to places Dean had already checked a hundred times, and it had successfully escaped his brother's good intentions.

Sam breaks the seal. He opens the box and turns it over. The ladybug hair tie drops into his palm-its glossy surface reflects the flashlight's beam as perfectly as if he had been handed this yesterday.

Amber.

It worked well enough once as an anchor for her. It had pointed her to him for nights, and Sam remembered her words.  _"Remember to call me, Sam, for our birthday."_

She had given him the means to save her. If not her body, then her soul, at least. No matter what Dean thought, burning this wouldn't have ended it. She is fundamentally trapped wherever the boogeyman has taken her because her body is there. Somewhere. But if he could call to her when the gate was open. Maybe...

Sam places the hair tie next to the pencil case on the dilapidated bed in the crumbling room and pulls the last three essential things from the duffle: two small, white, candle stumps and a glass wine bottle he had prepared with a mixture of alcohol, a gel made from frozen diesel fuel, and a few added ingredients for extra heat. It's primed and ready to go.

Sam lights the two candles that he has kept in a pocket next to his heart for seven days and nights per Brother Luciano's instructions. He sets one on the floor next to the bed and places the other to the left side of the closet door. This isn't part of the trap-it's a summoning ritual. His beating heart and his unique aura are the bait for something that has already proven it wants him.

The youngest Winchester picks up the first shot gun and flips off the safety. His hazel eyes are level and he stares at the closet door with the same intensity of a nine-year-old boy.

* * *

**1993**

**Sam - 10**

**Dean - 14**

"Wait, Missouri. Wait. Just."

Dean's hand went to his forehead. His heart jumped into his throat and cut off his voice. The cold sweat broke out a split second later and Dean instinctively looked over to the table where Sam sat placidly, a spoon in his hand, eyes far away. Because this wasn't good. This wasn't fucking good news.

" _Dean, you still there?"_

Missouri's voice was concerned but unflappable. Yeah. Even delivering that news.

"Y-yeah. Um. Are you sure. I mean...are you  _sure?_ "

" _Listen, Dean Winchester, I wouldn't call to make you jump at crickets in high grass. And if I could reach your daddy, he'd be on the phone with me right now, not you. I don't know exactly how much time you got, but you know what to do?"_

"You're okay? I mean, it didn't...it didn't..."

" _Spend less time worrying about the lady in Kansas, boy. I have my ways of encouraging those things to move on. But if it got to my doorstep, that means it's dogging you in better ways than a cop or a redneck with a chip on his shoulder because of a bad poker game. Where's your daddy?"_

Dean swallowed. "Don't know. Said he was goin' to a library somewhere. Looking up stuff to help Sam. He didn't expect to be back for a couple of days."

" _And what about that place you're in?"_

Dean walked over to a window, staying out of the line of sight, and hastily closed the blinds.

"Some old farmhouse. We've squatted here before. It's out in the open but it's, like, eight miles to town."

" _You got any kind of ride?"_

Dean shook his head and wet his lips. He closed another blind and checked the lock.

"No. There's a beat up tractor, but I've already looked it over-needs one of everything and lots of time."

Missouri took a deep breath.

" _It's angry, Dean. Real angry at your daddy. I saw some images-five bodies, heads all cut off."_

Yeah. Fuck. That nest of vamps. The last job Dad had done before they had hopped into the car looking for answers to Sam. He was going to do one last sweep because vamps tended to pair up. Six in that nest, not five. One was out. Dad suspected it, too. Dammit, they should have waited.

Fuck. This was Dean's fault. He made Sam the priority that morning and now the last vamp in the group was on some kind of blood hunt. Jesus, if it had hurt Missouri after everything she'd tried to do for them...for Sam.

" _Dean. Talk to me. I can't read you 800 miles away."_

"I know about it, yeah. Anything else you can tell me? We're gonna have to bunker down and ride this one out."

His voice was steady, but inside he was shaking because vamps were a no-go ride along with Dad for good reason. And had it been with Dad, he'd have been fine. He'd have been excited and ready. But without Dad and with Sammy all gone, it was completely different-too much unknown. Too much exposure. Too little personal experience with the real deal.

Sack up, Winchester. Sam was depending on him to do this, and there wasn't a choice. Even if he could reach Dad, there was no guarantee he'd make it back in time.

" _He was big. At least 6'2. Kinda rough looking. Probably not friendly even before."_

Awesome.

" _Moved weird. A little to the side. Maybe a limp, but it's an old one. He was plenty fast. You hear me?"_

"Missouri, they're all 'plenty fast.'"

" _You sassin' me now?"_

Dean started to rifle through cupboards looking for things he'd need, but vampires had so few fucking weaknesses and so many fucking strengths.

"No. I mean. I'm not-"

But Missouri's voice didn't sound angry.

" _Dean Winchester, you are gonna be okay. You boys are gonna beat this thing."_

Dean paused.

"How do you know? Did you...uh... _see_ it? Or something?"

" _Would it make you feel better if told you I did?"_

Dean made a face no one could see. "What? Yes! Of course it would."

_"Well, I ain't gonna tell you. You think you just automatically win and you'll do some fool thing to get yourself killed."_

Dean sighed. "Yeah, yeah. I got it."

" _You boys be careful. Look out for each other."_

Dean wanted to laugh at that useless sentiment. Sam couldn't look out for anything at the moment. Once upon a time, yeah. But now Sam was a small sack of meat to a vampire who wanted revenge.

"Right. Thanks, Missouri."

Dean pushed the end button. Sam sat at the table, not waiting for Dean to finish helping him eat. Not waiting for a vampire to bust through the door and kill him. Not worried that Dean hadn't faced a vamp yet and was mostly terrified that they weren't going to live through the night.

Dean tried his father's cell phone twice and got nothing. Probably in a deep dark basement of some library where there was no signal, looking for some way to save Sam when the greatest threat to Sam's life right now was stalking them in the cornfields.

Dean checked the horizon. Three hours to nightfall.

He had work to do.

* * *

Sam waits.

He waits and waits and he doesn't drop his sights on the closet to look at his watch but he thinks he's been standing here for an hour. Maybe longer. It's annoying, this wait, and concerning mostly because Sam has never roofied his brother before and isn't sure exactly how long he'll be out. And he has to do this, finish it, before Dean wakes up or things are going to go south real quick.

It's dark in the room-just the candle light and the ambiance from outside sneaking in through broken blinds. And Sam is nine again laying on the cot waiting for the door to click open. Waiting to see that glassy, shiny eye. Waiting.

_Sammy..._

Sam blinks his eyes. Had he fallen asleep just now? As impossible as that could have been, the air feels weird and his mouth is dry. His arms long ago locked, felt like lead holding up the shotgun. Nothing has changed. Nothing has moved so...

_Oh, Sam...Sammy Sam Sam...better than birthdays. Better than Christmas._

Sam blinks again. Is it colder? Or maybe his blood has just stilled a bit with the wait. But, no, his heart is racing. He's sweating. But the door is closed. He takes a breath, lets it out. His jaw clenches. Is it here? He's got one shot. The salt inside the closet might keep it from coming out, but it might not keep it from sliding back to where it came from.

" _Just gotta make it to one last birthday, Sam."_

That's what the Yellow Eyes demon bitch had said.

_I don't have seven more years..._

Sam flexes his finger on the trigger.

_Click._

Almost imperceptible except Sam is hyper aware of everything in the room right now. And he heard it.

_Squeeze the trigger. Do it now._

And then his father's voice takes over. Reminds him he has to face it down. Has to  _know_  it's there. Has to know for sure. Wait for the eye. Wait for it. Sam sets his sights. He ignores the ache in his joints.

And then the closet door opens. Completely.

Sam isn't prepared for the rush of cold, but it's not like an actual arctic blast. It's not real wind, but it's freezing, and something quiet in the back of his mind remembers it. Not the context of it, but like a glimpse of a photograph he'd almost forgotten he saw as a child-blurred edges, dulled colors, until presented with the original again. And then.

Sam seizes. In his mind he remembers running in no direction and can't find a way and, my god, he's cold and where is he and what is he doing?

" _Sam?"_

Shit. Shit he was...he has to clear it out. Push it down. He has to do something here and it's more important than anything he's ever done ever.

" _Sammy. Get it together."_

An arm grabs his and Sam pulls back and away even though the voice is familiar. Because of the tone. It has his attention, but it's coming from far away. Very far.

Something slaps his face. Maybe. Maybe it's just in his head?

" _Sam! Look alive, son."_

"Dad?"

Sam's eyes snap open. The candlelight hurts. The air hurts. His chest hurts, feels heavy. What the holy fuck was that? And where?

But now he remembers.

His arms are lead but he holds up the shotgun and takes aim because it's here. Has to be here. It's here.

And then he stops.

Over the threshold of salt, standing in the closet seven feet away, is his father.

John Winchester.

Sam's eyes go wide.

John's eyes are John's eyes. His face is dark-at least a week's worth of stubble. He's in a black jacket, blue jeans, his boots. Those boots.

John Winchester. Dad.

"Hello, son."

Sam shakes his head.

"No."

Because this can't be. Or can it? It's hard to think again. He can remember not knowing the way out and trying to run, maybe, or running in place.

"No. No, because...because you're...we  _burned_  you." And that should be enough. It should have been enough unless. No. And Dad was. He was.

"Yeah, Sam. Yeah. But you can hear me, can't you?" His father's voice. Holy shit...god damn. His voice. And Sam's eyes fill with tears because Dad...

"Yeah. But. Why? How? You're...you made a deal."

"I'm in hell, son. You already got that much."

Sam looks around the room, blurred vision. It's the motel room in Osseo. It's broken and smells like mold and years and abandonment. He feels sick, like he's spinning around and around.

"Then...then how." He drops the shotgun. "Dad, how?"

"Only one way you could be hearing me now. It's almost done."

Sam breathes out. Thinks. No, nothing. "What? What's almost done?"

"You, Sam. You're changing. Only one way you could hear the voices of the damned in hell. It's almost over. He's got his hooks in you and that's gonna be the end."

"Who?"

But Sam knows who. His blood freezes. He wants to throw up. Why is he here?

"What do you mean, who? The damn demon!"

Sam flinches.

"A goddamn disappointment. Jesus Christ, Sam. Couldn't handle anything. Ran away from every goddamn challenge that would have toughened you up. Put us all in danger. Should have pulled the trigger, son. How many times. How many goddamn times."

This is a bad tone. This is a "Dad's gone on a bender" tone and there would be a fist in there somewhere. A hand. Dad's hand. Cold and calloused and scarred and now burning in hell because Sam...

"You...you never should have...you never..." But Sam doesn't know how to put his response to this together. Because his father sold his soul to save Dean and he's in hell and Sam can hear him. And he's cursed. He's always known it.

"There's no saving you now, Sam."

The words hurt. They physically twist him up. And Sam always knew that there was no saving him. Somehow just... _knew_. Whatever the demon wanted, it was getting served up on a silver fucking platter. Sam had been running in place all these years, chasing everything, getting nowhere, making Dean run after him. Running right into the monster's arms.

"Dad. Please...what...what do I do?"

Because this voice was the voice that knew everything, goddammit. And Sam hated it. Hated that it always knew everything. He had tried to reject it, but what was the point? He was guilty of everything: Amber, Jess, Dean, Dad. All their lives. And everyone after them. He had one chance. One. And he blew it when he was nine. Not fair, no. Wanted to be normal but couldn't. Wasn't ever going to be normal, no, just hurt hurt hurt and all he wanted was to save  _everyone_.

"One place you can go, Sam. Only one. But it's a sure thing at least. Best chance."

Sam gasps. His hand is wet from so many tears. He looks up, hopeful. "What place?"

John holds out his hand.

"Come on, son." The voice is gentle, suddenly. "Come on, Sam."

He shakes his head, squints at his father's figure so real in the closet, in the doorway.

"Where?"

"You know where. You'll never lift a finger for a demon again. They'll be okay, Sam. Dean'll be okay. Come on, son. Let it go."

"Go..."

Into the doorway. Because he has to go there. For real this time. Dad says he has to. Dad knows everything...

A pain.

Words assail him. He sees them in his mind's eye.

" _Dear Sammy."_

He has it. The words. He has those words in his head too. Sam slaps his hand to his back pocket. His finger finds the edge of a piece of paper. Because Dad had written him a letter years ago. Because Dad had said...

He had said...

" _Sammy, I believe you can do this..."_

And Sam can almost hear his real father's voice say those impossible words. As impossible as the words from this vision in front of him are possible. But Dad had written Sam a letter and he remembers it. He remembers it all. In his head he lets them all out, the words in the letter. It explodes something. Shatters it. And the room twists for a second but he hangs onto them as hard as he can.

_I'm here to kill the fucking boogeyman._

When Sam looks up again, his father standing in the doorway has shiny eyes.

It takes him a second to wrap the words from the letter around him, fix them there, and show him the truth.

Sam's breathing heavy. He stands up straight and looks the bastard thing in the eyes. Finally. All the warnings about the boogeyman, that it could take a person's fears, twist them around-he had almost fallen for it, maybe. The overwhelming confusion of a few seconds ago is almost completely gone now, leaving only the conviction.

"Need to update your files. Working on old intel. Kinda sloppy." Sam feels oddly empowered for the first time in never. And he needs it. Wants more of it because it's keeping the fear at bay more than anything else.

John-not-John sighs and shakes his head in a way that is, really, so Dad.

"No. I got the memo, son. Just a whole lot more history to work with. Gotta hand it to you. Didn't think the letter would take so well."

"Yeah? Well, then you don't know humanity as well as you think you do. You can drop the charade now. I know what you are."

Sam feels the gun in his hands. Solid. Real. The boogeyman is talking to him, and he has to play this carefully because Sam knows better than anyone else just how much he's afraid. All the time. Afraid to lose to his fate, afraid to be left alone, afraid to always be a failure in someone's eyes, and what the monster can do with all of that. But if the boogeyman rabbits, it might not come back. If it closes the door, then he can't call to Amber. Sam has to kill it while the door is open. The fact that it seems chatty means it thinks it could win, and Sam is okay with that. For this second.

"Do you, Sammy? Do you know what I am?" John's image smiles. "Go ahead. Tell me what I am."

"You're some kind of shapeshifter on top of everything else. Show me what you really look like."

John's image purses his lips, shakes his head sadly, almost compassionately, and then looks up at Sam.

"You don't like my face, Sammy. Don't you remember?"

Sam blinks. That cold breeze that's not really wind picks up again and the blurred picture of something truly awful starts to materialize...

He shakes his head, tries to make it go back because okay...something isn't...this isn't good. With all his might Sam fixes a picture he knows in his head: John Winchester in army green-also a faded photo, but real. From Vietnam. He saw it once, and he knows it exists.

"You  _want_  to know what I am, Sammy." Still talking like Dad. Still sounding like Dad. "You're all grown up and so damn smart. You read everything. You like that. Knowledge is power, that's what you think. You're good at it. It's how you protect yourself, isn't it? Well, I'll tell you all about me, Sammy. We'll have better talks. Longer talks. I'll tell you everything you ever wanted to know about everything and, bonus, you won't have to worry about anything ever again."

Sam laughs shortly.

"This...this is your new plan? You want me to walk in there with you, and you're gonna entice me with knowledge?"

"You think that if you kill me, that everything will be okay? But you know it won't be okay, Sammy. We've chatted about it before."

Sam shakes his head. "This is all..."

"Do you want to hear the voices again, Sammy? I mean, they can't keep anything a secret from you if you listen for them."

"What? Who?"

"The sighs in heaven, Sam. The cries of the damned. And all their masters and mistresses up the line. You can hear the entire damn thing from beginning to end, and they don't even know. And I can show you how. You think this ends well for you and your brother? It doesn't." John's image points a finger at Sam. " _You told me that._ "

Sam stares. Because something is echoing just out of memory, and it's laced with fear and desperation. For Dean.

" _Don't die, Dean!"_

"See? It's there. You saved the world coming back to me, Sammy. But not in the way you think."

Sam shakes his head.

"What...what what's wrong with Dean?"

John's image shrugs.

"Come in and find out. When you were ten, you had all the dominoes in your hand. I helped you get them. But I had to let you go, and you know why. I locked them up tight before I left because, well, everything's got a price, son. You pay mine, you'll save everyone. That's what you want, isn't it?"

In his head and heart, Sam agrees. He wants to save everyone. And in that instant he raises the shotgun and fires it.

The closet door slams shut.

Sam fires the other round on principle.

He lowers the gun, heart pounding, breathing hard. So hard. It was loud and now it's quiet. The closet door is riddled with buckshot, but the perforations leak nothing but darkness.

Nothing stirs. The candlelight flickers from the movement of the air, but eventually it settles.

_Did I get it?_

He has to be sure. When he fired it was at a moment when he couldn't help but want what the boogeyman offered. Want it with his whole heart, honestly and genuinely. It was the only way to trick a monster that could read his mind. And maybe it had worked.

He turns to the bed and grabs the other shotgun and the wine bottle, one in each hand. The light from two candles is enough to see his way, and he takes a deep breath. Because this might be it. It could be over right now.

Sam's feet somehow make no noise on the old carpeted boards as he approaches the closet. The hand with the wine bottle reaches forward by inches. He doesn't breathe. He doesn't hope-he doesn't dare...

Sam throws the closet door open.

The back of the closet is riddled with buckshot and something else. Something dark and oozing.

_Boogeyman blood..._

But that's all there is. The salt line is intact but the monster is gone.

Sam's brain goes into overdrive. It's swearing, yes, loudly, but there's another chance. Five hours, maybe four and half hours left in the window. As long as he can get it to come out one more time...

The world suddenly goes flying over Sam's head as something grabs his legs out from under him.

Sam yells. It's not something he can stop. The sudden impact with the ground forces the air out of his lungs. He hits his chin and sees stars of blooming pain. Split seconds slow down as the adrenaline hits.

Sam drops the wine bottle and lifts himself slightly so he can see. But what he sees...

Two long arms. Too long. Too long for reality, in something like striped sleeves and gnarled, grotesque, clownlike huge hands have him around the ankles. Arms that go all the way back...

...to under the bed.

_Under the bed! Fuck!_

In all the boogeyman lore, the closet and under the bed. Under the bed! But because Sam only saw it from the closet...

He raises the shotgun.

At the first violent pull on his ankles, Sam's shot goes wide.

_Oh shit. Oh no. Oh no!_

It shouldn't work. It shouldn't be able to take him anywhere, but fear overwhelms reason completely and entirely. Sam drops everything and reaches up for the opening of the closet. He manages to get a grip there as the next violent pull stretches every muscle to its breaking point. The fatigue in his arms from holding the shotgun aloft for an hour, the gasps of breath he's only now able to draw, the pounding in his head, and the vision of five foot arms are too much.

Sam can't spare a breath to even grunt with the need to hold on. To hang in there. To not get pulled away forever and ever and die in some plane far away from Dean.

He puts every last ounce of his strength into his biceps and his fingers to pull himself forward an inch. He tries to kick, but the grip is so tight it feels like his feet will come off at the ankles first.

And then the rotting wood of the closet door finally gives.

When Sam loses his grip on the one side, it's too late and he knows it. His last thought as the boogeyman pulls him into darkness is  _"Dean, I'm sorry!"_

(to be continued...)


	16. "All Nightmare Long"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boogeyman grabbed Sam. Has he won? Or does the strange universe Sam is in now still give him a chance to find allies and finally finish what he started?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note:
> 
> Hi guys! Did you think this fic was dead? Nope. It was just on school Hellatus. This is the first posting in a series of final chapters over the next couple of weeks so...yay! Thank you in advance to everyone who reads and comments and stuff. And muchas gracias as always to my partner in crime, Agelade, who would never ever let me NOT finish this story, who betas my work, and writes much more amazing SPN fanfic than I do over on her page. And we're also on Tumblr and LiveJournal now thanks to her and her persistent marketing skills. Lustraverse is the name of our collective little universe if you want to check it out.
> 
> -Caladrius
> 
> p.s. Sorry for that nasty cliffhanger last chapter...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

 

  **Chapter 16: "All Nightmare Long"**

**1993**

**Sam - 10**

**Dean - 14**

Dean's hands were ice cold on his brow. He wiped his face down because he had finally paused for ten seconds to think and he needed to breathe, to keep it together, because there was a vampire upstairs that sounded pissed even while it laughed, and that was clearly a bad combination.

The stub of a candle didn't give off nearly enough heat to cut the wet chill in the basement, but Dean needed to see Sam even if Sam couldn't see him. A halo of yellow stretched just to their faces and then was lost in the gloom of old shelving and abandoned paint cans and dissolving concrete floor behind them.

A deep clatter and a yowl indicated that the vamp had found Dean's holy-water-in-suspended-paint-can trap, which meant it had taken the bait and was on the second floor. With any luck the fucker would slide on the salt skid in the first bedroom and at least hobble himself on the waiting broken glass scattered all over the place. Kevin McCalister had nothing on Dean Winchester when it came to resourcefulness and a house full of crap, but at the end of the day, a vampire was still a vampire and Dean was just a 14-year-old kid with a freshly sharpened machete and a wooden stake whittled from the leg of a kitchen chair. In other words, this whole thing was to buy a little time and maybe the barest  _barest_  advantage. Dean wasn't even sure he could even classify it as an advantage, but they were still alive at least, and there was always a chance Dad was on his way.

There was a chance, but not a good one.

Dean was on his own, and he knew it.

The rafters shook. Yelling, and then loud talking, but Dean couldn't make out what it was saying. It was impossible to know how many traps it had wandered into and if any of them had succeeded in doing anything beyond pissing it off more. The basement was deep, but vampires were known for their heightened senses and their ability to smell blood (which is why he had cut his arm and bled out a little on a pillow case upstairs and then sewed the shit out of the open wound, super glued it, and wrapped it with half a roll of bandages before getting them both into the basement).

Dean pursed his lips. There was nothing else he could do except go up there and face the damn thing when it got tired of the chase.

He looked up at Sam.

Sam was sitting on his calves. His gaze seemed drawn to the light, though it could have been the reflection of the flame in his brother's eyes.

"Sam," Dean whispered, brushed a hand through Sam's hair and then squeezed his shoulder, "We're gonna be okay. Don't worry-I got this. I promise."

Saying it out loud solidified just how much was riding on this-on him. A vamp bite would be pretty much the end if it didn't just kill them outright. And Dean was sure that a vamp on mission of vengeance, who'd followed them for literally hundreds of miles, was not going to let things end that clean. Dean was the only thing that stood between them and a scenario where Dad came home and had to cut off the heads of his sons.

_Not gonna happen. Not gonna fucking happen._

Dean looked up instinctively as the stairs above them creaked.

And now he could hear the monster pretty clearly.

"-was  _my_ family,  _my_ people, so it's gotta be like this, kid. I'd fucking rip that cocksucker's neck open, but that wouldn't be enough. He has to fucking pay-"

Too close. Dean couldn't let the vampire corner them in the basement when the one light source was so fragile-vamps could see in the dark, but Dean had zero chance of a kill shot on a vamp if he couldn't aim.

Not to mention the fact that Sam was down here and Sam was pretty much helpless.

Still.

Dean took a deep breath. Shit always came down to that moment: that split second before he fired, that split second before he jumped, the split second before he stretched out over the abyss and looked hell right in the eye.

This was it.

Dean reached out and took Sam's hand. He put the machete into it, the sharpened stake in the other.

"Sam, I got no idea if you can actually hear any of this, but I'm gonna tell you anyway just in case."

Steps on boards above sifted sand to the floor nearby, a soft sound.

Dean continued in the lowest whisper he could manage. "There's a vampire upstairs and it's lookin' to do some damage. Don't wanna leave you, Sam, but I can't let it come down here, understand? So, if any fucking thing walks down that stairs and it ain't me or dad, you gotta break out of this and cut the goddamn thing's head off, you hear me?" Dean put both his hands on Sam's shoulders, tried to find that lost gaze, didn't want to think about how this could be the last time he ever saw his little brother, couldn't think about that now.

But his voice cracked.

"Don't you let that fucking thing touch you, Sam, do you hear me? Wherever the hell you are, you  _listen_  to me now, okay? Dad's not gonna be okay by himself if this ends bad. It might think you're easy prey because you're all out of it like this, but if it gets within one fucking foot, you come out of there and you kill it. Okay? But you gotta live. That's it. That's all. You gotta live, Sammy."

Dean stared into Sam's eyes, but there was nothing, no change. This part was hard. Dean's chest was way too tight, and that burning in his eyes wasn't going to do either of them any good. There was no way he could lose this, because the chances of Sam surviving after him were pretty much zero at this point.

Which meant that if the vamp won, Dean lost absolutely fucking  _everything_.

"Counting on you, buddy." He gave Sam's shoulders one last shake, and then leaned over and kissed Sam's messy head fast. "Love you, Sammy." And then Dean picked up a second machete and stake and moved away.

At the bottom of the steps, Dean looked back one last time. Sam sat like the only living thing in a universe of darkness surrounded by a tiny halo of candlelight. His hands held the weapons like a totem god, and his still, small form gave the impression that he was waiting for the world to be born around him.

_Don't die, Sam._

Dean tightened his grip and started up the stairs.

* * *

**May 2, 2007**

**Sam - 24**

**Dean - 28**

_Don't die, Sam._

_Dean, no! Don't die, Dean!_

Sam opens his eyes and sits straight up because, what the hell, is Dean in trouble?

Echoes fade into the swirling dark corridors of memory replaced immediately with facts: Dean is in the Impala surrounded by just about every protective charm known to man. And the last thing Sam recalls is being pulled under the bed with the smell of dust and rotting wood.

The smell hasn't gone away.

Sam looks around. He's on a bed, in a bedroom of some kind, but it's not one he knows and it's certainly not from the one from the motel in Osseo. For one thing, this is a four poster bed, and the covers he's laying on are dusty. Everything in this room is dusty. From the mantle over the lit fireplace to the wardrobe to his left, it feels like he's found his way to a museum and decided to take a nap in a model of a late 19th-century house that had been just let go by its caretakers.

"Hello?" He calls out and immediately feels a heaviness in his chest. The air is full of tiny bowling balls that hang inside his lungs when he takes a deep breath and press against his chest when he speaks. Instinctively, Sam goes to rub his ribs and his arms swim thickly through the air. Gravity? Something else? Maybe drugged? And where the hell is he?

The fire in the fireplace is ample light for the surreal scene to solidify. Sam is pretty sure that, beyond the troubling presence of a fire already going in the fireplace, no one has been wherever he is now or lived here for at least a hundred years.

Wood cracks, snapping brightly, and he can feel the heat from his vantage on the bed which means that some rules still apply to whatever theoretical plane he is in.

"Hello? Anyone?"

It's worth a second try. No boogeyman, so Sam wants to think he'd done some damage before he got dragged off to who-knows-where, but it's also pretty likely that the monster is messing with him, trying to get into his head, the way it had done with its illusion of Dad.

_Dad._

All that training as a kid-all those calisthenics with weights and endurance regimens are hopefully going to come in handy in a place with less oxygen and heavier gravity.

Sam swings his legs over the side, waits to feel how it affects him, pulls on him, and then he stands.

It takes a few seconds to get his bearings, and it feels like he's weighted down with a wool blanket soaked in water, but he's still breathing and his familiar center of gravity still anchors him to the floor, so there's that.

Sam isn't panicking. Despite the fact that he's most likely not on the material plane, has been kidnapped by the boogeyman, and has absolutely no idea how he's going to get out, he feels calm. Centered. Because the boogeyman hasn't gotten away. Because Sam hasn't completely lost, and yes, maybe it all sounds like bravado in his head, that's the truth: He hasn't failed, not yet, and as long as he's alive, he has a chance of figuring out and making it back to Dean before the window closes.

The window.

Shit, how long has he been out? There's no way to tell. He doesn't spend precious time being frustrated over the fact that the anchor he had invested so much in has somehow failed because there's no time for it.

Sam takes stock of his weapons. He remembers losing the shotgun. No guns, then, but he still has the knife in his boot. It's not super impressive, but it's better than nothing if the damn thing gets close again.

Resources.

He takes a couple steps across the room and opens the wardrobe. Old clothes, faded and limp, swirl up a cloud of dust and Sam coughs. White shirts, some kind of tailored pants. Brown leather shoes. Clothes for a boy, then.

On top of the bureau he finds a small set of antique tin soldiers, actually pretty cool, and an old-fashioned whittled wooden top with a length of string to wrap and spin it. Sam shoves the top and string and a tin soldier into his pocket. Everything else in here is either weathered furniture or too decayed to be of any value, so he leaves it and heads for the door.

He turns the knob and the door opens with a rusty grind. Not like a locked door would have kept Sam in, but the fact that it wasn't locked is probably not a good sign-when things seemed too easy or good to be true, they probably are. Of course, being stuck in the boogeyman's territory means that it probably thinks Sam is trapped regardless. Sam hangs onto that hope because he's been underestimated before and it saved his bacon.

The door opens onto a hallway with candle-lit sconces. Sam's vision swims for a second and he braces himself on the wall. Right. Okay, yes. Maybe a little snag in that hope because there's clearly less oxygen in this plane. Oxygen deprivation slows reflexes, impedes critical thinking, everything he really  _needs_  right now. But of course, that's the point, right?

Sam bites his bottom lip, his short term memory seems intact so far, so that's something in the plus column-he's not too far gone yet, but he's going to have to concentrate on taking deeper breaths, and, of course, if he has to get physical he'll need to prioritize his actions.

Sam runs his hand along the wall. This is real. Solid. Just like Dad's planes hypothesis, the boogeyman's home plane had to be tangible in order to be able to hold the monster's physical form. Sam would have celebrated the little details that give him a fighting chance if the whole house thing he was put into acted more like, well, a regular house. The corridor he is in, for example, appears to contain no doors at all, just a staircase at the end that goes up.

Of course it would have to go up when Sam is trying to conserve resources, but there is nothing left for it but to go until he can't go anymore. At the top of the stairs he opens a door leading to a small room the size of a stair landing which appears to contain just one thing: a small decorative hall table with nothing on it. To his right, impossibly, he finds a longer stairway than the first going down.

"O... kay? What the hell is this? A funhouse?" Sam spontaneously remembers the long, almost clownlike hands and arms that had reached out for him from under the bed in Osseo and shudders.

Just as Sam's toe touches the threshold of the new staircase, the silence of the place is disturbed by an incredibly loud bang behind him. Sam flinches and turns, ready for those freakishly impossible limbs coming for him again, but encounters nothing save the hall table wobbling slightly in the reverberation.

Okay, so the sound was real.

"Hello?"

Sam quickly crosses to the wall. It sounded like it had come from the other side maybe. His eyes and fingertips trace the grain of the wood up and down. There aren't any visible seams. He lays his palm flat against it and waits, but there's no vibration at all.

So he knocks on the wood.

"Hello? Someone there?"

And waits.

After a good sixty seconds, Sam takes a big breath and turns away.

A low knock from the other side of the wall seems to mock him.

Sam turns around and looks sideways, hesitating, before he knocks back two times. He's answered almost immediately with two deep knocks.

Sam feels a momentary excitement that there might be other life here after all. "Hello? Hey? Can you hear me? Are you okay in there?" He knocks three more times.

Three times the wall knocks back.

Just from his own testing of the wood, Sam knows it's not plywood-it's thick and heavy and he doesn't have many resources, but if someone is trapped in there...

He looks around, wonders if the little hall table has any heft to it and how much this is going to cost in oxygen. "Hang on. Let me see if I can get you out."

And then the knocking starts again.

And this time it doesn't stop. It gets louder.

Louder.

Sam freezes. The wall begins to visibly shake with the concussion and he's starting to get a bad feeling. Like maybe whatever is in the wall isn't in distress at all.

Maybe he's the one in distress.

He backs up several steps as the pounding becomes a thundering that works on Sam's eardrums and causes his heart to pump doubletime, his body giving him the message that maybe it's time to go.

And then the ornamental table flies at him without warning, slamming him in the thighs and with the heavier gravity on its side, almost sends Sam to the floor.

 _Okay, now we can't be friends_.

Sam manages to stay upright but recognizes this for what it is-angry poltergeist activity. And while it's familiar in its way, and that's oddly comforting, it's also bad news. He turns for the only exit that has potential to take him to someplace that isn't a dead end in the room he started-he hits the down stairs and instinct causes him to duck as the table sails an inch over his head, clatters over several steps and splinters near the bottom. Adrenaline pumping, Sam takes two steps at a time, grabbing the railing for his compromised balance. Behind him, what sounds like two enormous booted feet are racing to catch up. Sam doesn't waste the energy to look back-he knows what he is going to see.

Absolutely nothing.

But the danger is fully real, and he knows that too.

Sam has to practically jump over the table debris at the bottom of the stairs because of his shaky momentum and he sails into the wall of another corridor. The impact drums out what air he's got and for a horrifying moment, he's sure he's going to black out. Sam sucks in a gasping breath and when his blurring vision begins to come back he's confronted with a boy.

Sam can't make out details - blond, maybe five feet, wearing blue.

He tries another breath and his eyebrows draw together in confusion.  _Please God tell me I'm not hallucinating already._

"Come with me."

The banging from the stairs hasn't ceased, and now it's far too close.

"Hey..." Sam tries but there's nothing in his lungs for speaking so he bites his lips closed. Priorities.

"Hurry. Hurry, come with me right now."

The figure turns and takes a few steps down the hallway before looking over his shoulder. Sam pulls himself together with effort, and with each breath the boy looks more like a boy than an apparition. Sam begs his legs to move, and then he's running after the kid. Behind him are the sounds of the devastated hallway table being kicked around.

The boy opens a random door and faces Sam. He's young, but not that young-just on the cusp of a major growth spurt, and he looks anxious.

"Get in here, quick, and be as quiet as you can."

Sam doesn't ask, he ducks inside just as the door shuts behind him. Against his will, adrenaline tapped out, he slides down the wall to sit on the floor. His face feels numb and he's not sweating though his heart is pounding. Just as the darkness descends in earnest this time he swears he can hear the boy outside somewhere saying, "No, Charlie!...No! Go back to sleep. Please go back to sleep, Charlie. Go back to sleep..."

* * *

Sam wakes with a start. The automatic responses to falling asleep in a strange place are not running on all cylinders and it's an effort to remember where he is and what is happening. It takes too long to get his senses online which does have the effect of helping him recall the unfriendly atmosphere of the boogeyman's house of chutes and ladders.

Crap. How long had he been out? How long? Sam feels himself out internally and is relieved that except for maybe a bruise on his shoulder and his thigh, he's okay. He grabs the door jam to his right and hauls himself with an effort to his feet.

The room the mysterious boy led him to is similar to the one in which he originally woke up after being dragged to this place: old, turn of the century four poster bed, bureau and wardrobe, a chair facing a cold hearth. Like his own room, this one is faded and dusty.

He catches sight of blue fabric on the armrest of high backed chair near the fireplace and remembers the boy who probably saved his life. He approaches it casually.

"Hey," he begins. "Um, thanks for the..."

But the words dry up in his throat. There is a boy in the chair facing the cold ashes, but this boy hasn't been alive for a long time. It's the same outfit, Sam is pretty sure, and now he realizes that it's a pair of blue pajamas, but the flesh that once filled it out has been dried and shrunken with time. Skeletal fingers clutch the armrest, and while Sam doesn't see any blood, that makes the discovery no less horrific. The boy's blonde hair still sits atop his head, but the eyes are nothing but sunken hollows, the cheeks leathery and drawn back against a too-small jaw in a rictus grin.

"Jesus..." Sam breathes and steps back. He wants to look away, but he can't because this is how it ended. Maybe how they all ended. Trapped and alone and dead and no rest for their bones or their loved ones or them...

His eyes blur and he rubs his mouth.

"Does it make you sad?"

Sam turns towards the door and blinks rapidly at the boy standing there. Now that he's recovered enough air to see well enough, Sam takes stock of the kid: Blond hair, yes, and blue eyes that almost match his pajamas. His pale cheeks have a smattering of freckles to boot.

"What?"

The boy takes a step forward and points to the chair. "You look like you're gonna cry."

Sam lets out a breath at a momentary loss for words. He shakes his head and it turns into a small nod. "Yeah, I'm sad. I didn't..." He stops and restarts. "My name's Sam. What's yours?"

"Patrick Dulin."

"Patrick..." The name sparks a memory somewhere in the back of his mind. It takes too long for his page of notes to materialize in his mind's eye, another drawback of the punishing atmosphere. "You...you were one of the boogeyman victims. You fell through a lake when you were 8."

The boy tilts his head. "Yeah. That's right. How did you know all that?"

Sam takes a deep breath. "I was researching the boogeyman. Trying to find a way to stop it."

"You were hunting it?"

Sam squints his eyes. "Y-yeah. Why...that word?"

The boy purses his lips in an exaggeration. "Which word? Hunting?"

"Yeah, that."

"Oh, because Amber said you were a hunter who hunted monsters. So, you know, I just put it together."

 _Amber_.

"You know Amber?" Sam feels his heart skip a beat.

"Yeah, we mostly all know each other. Once you're dead, as long as the boogeyman isn't grabbing you all the time, there's not much else to do but wander around and look for other dead people. There are a lot here." Patrick picks at the cover of his bed.

"Where's Amber? I'm looking for her."

Patrick shrugs. "I don't know. Around. She said you'd be coming to stop the boogeyman and we should all be looking for an adult, but we didn't know where you'd show up." He makes a face. "She made it sound like you were some kind of Superman, but you're pretty stupid to get pulled into here. I bet you don't know how to get out, do you?"

Sam sighs. Looks around the room. "I'm working on it."

"See? Stupid. I bet you can't even spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Huh? I bet you can't spell it."

Sam raises an eyebrow and cracks a smile.

"Yes I can. I-T. I spelled 'it.' Any other IQ tests you wanna throw over here?"

Patrick makes another face of disgust but Sam sees a hint of maybe a grin.

"Okay fine. You know that one. Doesn't mean you aren't stupid. Like bangs-on-the-wall stupid."

"You got me there," Sam admits. "Bad move. What was that?"

Patrick's face falls.

"That's Charlie. Or. What's left of Charlie."

"What's left?"

"Yeah. Come on." He moves to the door and he really, for all the world, looks, acts, and sounds like a solid, living kid. But he isn't-he's dead. And worse, he's dead because Sam couldn't end the boogeyman in 1993. At another time or place, Sam would be latching onto that guilt and letting it have its way with him. Whether it's the low oxygen forbidding his brain from overworking or the sense that, even now, he might still be on a path to redemption, Sam steps out behind Patrick with a laser focus on the present only.

It's almost a relief.

"Where are we going?"

"You wanna find Amber, right? She sure as hell wants to find you. I'll tell you about Charlie and some of the others on the way. Don't wanna stay in here and stare at 'Curse of the Mummy Patrick' anymore if it's all the same to you."

Sam gives Patrick a flat smile in agreement. "Lead on."

"Okay, but before we go out there, you need to try to make your gigantic body as quiet as possible." Patrick's face is earnest. "I'm serious. No yelling out like an idiot and for God's sake, no pounding on the walls. Got it?"

Sam nods. "Got it."

* * *

"Charlie was one of the unlucky ones."

"Unlucky?" Sam ambles along next to Patrick and is grateful for the kid's shorter strides to give him a pace his lungs can manage even though his instincts beg him to run through the maze to get to Amber faster.

"Yeah. The boogeyman liked what he could do. You know. Like, his psychic power."

Sam winces.

"What could he do?"

"I don't know exactly because when I got here he was already fading. See, if you're lucky, then you don't have anything the boogeyman really wants. He mostly leaves you alone, like me and Amber and few others. We spend time hiding from him, but he doesn't try hard to find us because he's got the unlucky ones to play with."

They walk to the end of the corridor and enter a billiards room. It's perfectly intact, right down to the dusty table and a bar that even looks like it might contain some ancient liquor. From there they take another set of stairs down.

"And what does he do with the unlucky ones? Does he...feed on them?" Sam hesitates to ask, but it isn't like he could add more horrors to this kid's experience and Sam needs answers.

"Don't know. Maybe. Probably. That would explain why they fade. See, after awhile if you see the boogeyman too much, you just start to...lose yourself. Lose who you are, you know?"

"Like, your personality starts to deteriorate?"

Patrick looks at Sam with a face. "Okay, big words also don't make you not stupid. If that word means 'fall apart,' then yeah. First you stop remembering your mom and dad and your life and stuff. And then you get time all confused, like you forgot what you did two seconds ago and think you just did something you did a hundred hours ago. Stuff like that."

Sam puts the pieces together. "Can't move on to the place you're supposed to go, and your soul is drained. A person would become an angry spirit. A poltergeist is like the very last and worst stage of that. So, that's what happened to poor Charlie."

"Yeah, more or less."

They pass a stairway. Sam looks up and notices that it goes nowhere but into a ceiling.

"What the hell? What is this place? Seriously?"

Patrick stops and follows Sam's gaze. "It's crazy, right? Trust me, it gets weirder. There are rooms with five closets. Stairs that go up and down for no reason. And there are a million secret passages to boot. If I wasn't dead and if the boogeyman wasn't such a scary bastard, it'd actually be kinda cool. Come on."

Patrick starts to move on but Sam can't stop staring at the ceiling. Something about this place rings a bell far, far back in his mind. Like maybe he had seen this before. But how? In a dream?

"Sam?"

"Huh? Yeah. It's just...I can't shake this feeling I've maybe been here before."

"You were high."

"What?" Sam half laughs.

"You know. Drugs. I think acid makes you see crazy stuff," Patrick responds matter-of-factly.

"Okay, hey, I don't need to take drugs to see crazy stuff," Sam assures him with a head shake. "Believe me."

"Right, because you hunt monsters."

"Bingo."

There's a few seconds of silence as they walk through what looks like a drawing room into another hallway.

"Wish I had known about monster hunters...before...even if I would have thought you were all on crack because...I told my mom." Patrick's voice drops. "I told her for days. I told her and she didn't believe me, of course."

Sam stops. There's a catch in this kid's voice, and it reminds him that, spunky attitude or not, he's talking for all intents and purposes to a ghost who's had to watch his own body rot.

"And you didn't really totally believe it yourself either, right? You thought, 'I'm too big for this' and tried to ignore it. Wanted her to be right, that monsters didn't exist."

Patrick sniffles and nods in agreement, defeated. "Yeah, exactly. Exactly like that. You know about it."

"Yeah, I know about it because I was there when I was nine. I tried to ignore it, too. Tried to hope it was all my imagination."

Patrick shrugs sadly. "So, then, how did you live? How did you get away back then?"

"Honestly?" Sam starts, and then his voice catches. "It's because I have a big brother who  _knew_  monsters existed."

Calling up that memory brings back a collage of images of Dean over the last almost two years. Anytime the boogeyman came up,  _anytime_  it did, Dean had had a strong reaction, tried to stop him. For two years Sam wished Dean would just give up the attitude and support him doing this  _one_ thing that might make a huge difference in his future, but even an idiot now could look at those pictures in his head and know that Dean's primary emotion every single time was fear.

Fear that this  _exact scenario_  was going to play out. That Sam was walking a straight line to death or worse.

And Sam was always looking at hope for a future beyond defeating the boogeyman and not really at the boogeyman itself. But Dean was. Never saw the damn thing, even in 1993 when he faced the closet all night, but every time Sam had to bring it up, Dean was in the room with it, with the reality of its danger.

At the end of this, one of them was going to end up being right...

_Dean. Are you okay? I swear, I'm making it out of here. I swear I am._

It's tugging at his heart. Almost literally. For a split second, Sam can almost feel the connection between them spanning planes, universes, past, present and future, showing him a path...

Patrick's voice shakes Sam out of the moment.

"Then I guess you lucked out. Major."

Sam feels the despondent half laugh in the back of his throat that catches on the guilt for not really  _getting_ Dean earlier. "Never would have counted myself lucky about anything, but for Dean? Yeah, I guess you're right."

"I have... _had_...a little sister. Cassidy. Hey, Sam. What year is it out there?"

The vise in Sam's chest just clenches tighter. "2007."

"Yeah? Jesus. Seven years already? So then, I guess she'd be...13. Wow. She's older now than I was when I died. Doesn't that suck ass? Now...she could be the big sister."

It reaches some breaking point and Patrick clearly can't hold it in anymore. He turns his back to Sam and his shoulders shake. Sam recognizes that posture because he's had to force it so many times-he's trying to be stoic, trying to take it in stride. But nothing can change the fact that Sam just reminded Patrick that life went on, completely, without him. And that's not fair, and it's not right, and Sam can't help but beat himself up. He was a coward once and now a kid like Patrick will never see his sister again. Never see her grow up, get married. Never be a proud uncle, or anything.

"Patrick...I'm so. So sorry."

It was probably the tone of his voice-too pitying for the budding manhood of an 11-year-old boy. Patrick rubs his face..

"Here's the bad part. There's nothing to eat here, Sam. No water either. So, yeah, it's lucky when the boogeyman leaves you alone, but then you just get weak and sick and die. That's it. That's how it goes. And man, I remember those days sucked forever and then it's over and it doesn't really get better. It's supposed to get better, right? I mean, it  _has_  to get better."

Sam nods emphatically and when Patrick turns around to fix Sam with his red-rimmed eyes it's all he can do to keep a strong face himself. "Yeah. Yeah, it gets better. Out of here, out of this place, something is going to come and take you to a much better place."

"You swear?"

Sam, of course, has no idea what lies beyond death, but he knows that whatever it is, it does have to be better than this hell. Sam believes in God. If there is a hell, there  _has_ to be a heaven, and that's where these kids have to be headed. They deserve it.

"I swear. I swear, Patrick, and I'm gonna find a way to get you, Amber, and anyone else I can find, out of here."

Patrick scoffs, but it's not cruel, just realistic. "Yeah? Well, if I were you I'd just concentrate on trying to stay alive and hope that you're a lucky one down here. I don't mean to be a downer, but no one gets out for good, especially no one alive."

Sam opens his mouth to speak, to tell Patrick that the boogeyman never grabbed a Winchester before, when a tendril of condensation curls up from his lips. The temperature takes a dramatic dive.

He stops dead in his tracks. Patrick's spirit doesn't even seem to notice and takes a few more steps before he turns around to see what the holdup is.

Sam looks up from his cloudy breath to Patrick's eyes. The kid may not feel cold anymore, but the fact that he recognizes something about this is written plainly all over his face. It's impossible that the boy could get paler, but he does somehow.

"Oh, shit. You're not a lucky one, are you?" Patrick backs up.

"It means he's coming, right?" Sam says calmly. "If you wanna run, I don't blame you."

The candlelight sputters, dims, and then goes dark for Sam. He hears Patrick say, "Don't die, Sam!" but it sounds like it's coming from far away. Sam tries to brace himself against a wall, bends down to find the knife in his boot as his blood feels like it's trying to freeze in his veins, when the monstrous grasp of an unseen hand on his shirt pushes him prone onto his back, forcing all the air he had been saving out of his lungs.

He gasps, focusing every ounce of power he has left to him to try to make his lungs expand because his arms and legs are already feeling useless.

_Sammy...Sam...you're lucky. Yes. So lucky that you're unlucky. Isn't that a fun puzzle?_

The words are in his head, and once there, Sam realizes he's been trapped inside as well.

_Get the hell away from me! Get off me!_

_Sammy, we have so much catching up to do...don't waste it. You're here. You can use it now, better than ever, you can use it._

_I'm never doing a damn thing for you. Now. Ever._

_We help each other, Sammy. That's why you're here. To save Dean, remember?_

_Dean's in no danger from you. You can't twist that. You can't use that anymore._

_Who said? Sammy, who said Dean was in danger from me? I don't want Dean-but everyone else does. You remember, don't you? You heard the voices...what they will do to him...to you. Up there._

And then Sam's consciousness falls back. Back in time. He feels small. Vulnerable. He's in a world almost entirely encased in ice-facets of it reflect strange light. There are passages that he knows lead back here. Leads back to the boogeyman who hovers over him with eyes... _those shiny eyes_  sunken in a deep darkness under a strange looking tophat? The pitch midnight of what should be a face is broken up only by the twinkling, hateful orbs and the teeth.

_Jesus Christ the teeth..._

A child's worst nightmare-long, some broken, all jagged...too many...they fill the darkness and when it smiles...when it smiles...Sam wants to run but he can't. His feet can get no purchase, and the boogeyman's hands on his head violate his subconsciousness, his soul, push him to see things he doesn't want to see...hear things he shouldn't ever ever ever be able to hear.

 _Sammy...I'm not the scary one._ You  _are..._

And it smiles and smiles and then Sam knows, for certain, that Dean is going to die and  _that's just what they all want..._

_One chance to save Dean, Sammy...one chance to save everyone...think it over. We have forever now for you to think it over...you taste so good...the very best...so all is forgiven. All is forgiven._

_Dean!_

_(to be continued...)_


	17. "Sweet Amber"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been 14 years since Sam last saw Amber. With his new allies, Sam is hoping to get enough information to save everyone, including himself.
> 
> Meanwhile, in the past--Young Dean's got a situation. The situation just got worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're moving right along. Hang in there!
> 
> Caladrius

 

 

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

**Chapter 17: "Sweet Amber"**

**May 2, 2007**

**Sam - 24**

**Dean - 28**

"Sam! Sam! Wake up! Wake up wake up wake up! Don't die!"

Air fills Sam's lungs and he gives a long, painful gasp. He reaches out weakly but his hands fall to the ground and for several seconds all he can do is force a limited amount of oxygen into himself, see nothing but darkness, and hear whispering voices.

"He's not dead." A boy. Patrick he thinks.

"He's not dead, thank you, God." This voice is new. It's a little girl.

"Why do you think he left?"

"I don't know. He didn't look like he was feeling good. Maybe Sam made him leave."

"Are you kidding? Look at him? He looks almost dead already."

"Don't say that, Patrick. Don't say that."

Sam hears a sniffle as things begin to come together. He coughs. Experiments with moving. His vision shakes off the ice prison of a second earlier and the first thing that emerges are the flames in candles in sconces, and then the scene brightens by degrees.

He says her name before he can even see her.

"Amber?"

"Sam!"

He feels something on his hand. Soft and a little tingly.

And then he sees her.

Fourteen years fall away in the span of a heartbeat.

Pale, but she was always pale. Sandy blondish hair, no longer in a ponytail, but loose. It still manages to cover one blue eye. She is wearing a pink night gown and she looks so much tinier than Sam remembered. So frail. What was he thinking when he left her alone all those years ago? He should have broken down the door and rescued her from this fate. He should have done his job and shot the damn monster!

"Amber, my God." Sam's eyes fill with tears of joy and sorrow at the same time. He doesn't deserve the smile she's giving him with her whole soul. She glows noticeably and when her tiny hand touches his cheek, it tingles. He can  _feel_ this because they are, once again, on the same plane together. She was lost for all those years and he  _found_  her.

"Don't cry, Sam. Are you hurt? Do you feel hurt?"

Of course she wouldn't understand his tears. To an 8-year-old, you cry when you're either sad or hurt, and she can't visibly see why he'd be either one of those things.

"No," he says, because she won't understand how his heart is slowly shredding into little bloody pieces at seeing her again, at remembering how much he had failed her.

"Wuss." Patrick says under his breath, but he looks relieved. Amber pushes his arm.

"Don't say that boys don't cry. I've seen  _you_ cry."

"What? I'm not a  _grown up_."

"That doesn't matter."

"Yeah it does."

"Shut up, Patrick, or I'm going to pick on you for your pajamas again."

"Jeeeeeesus," Patrick breathes. "Get  _over_  it already. I told you, my mom picked them out and I didn't have a choice."

The weight on Sam's chest lifts and he has to smile through the tears at the exchange. They're dead. They're trapped, but they're still... kids. And Amber had no one to talk to, once upon a time. She sat by herself, she was timid. No one could understand her psychic condition, not even her mother, but here... here she is surrounded by children just like her, experiencing their hardships. And it had been fourteen years of a strange kind of life for her, even if it was probably horrible in almost every other way.

Innocence held on, impossibly. Even here. It somehow gives Sam hope he never expected.

Amber is distracted from Patrick by Sam's half grin. She looks him over and smiles. "Sam, it's really you, right? You're the biggest person I've ever seen."

He has to actually laugh for real at that.

"Yeah, it's me. I, uh...had a growth spurt somewhere around 11th grade." He tenses his muscles a little and finds that he can sit up. "I'm frankly surprised you can even recognize me."

"I'd always recognize you, Sam. Even if you were old and shriveled. You kept my present, remember? You kept it. It helped me find you."

Sam takes a deep breath and nods. The last time he had "seen" Amber had been when she had come to him a few times in the night as a haunting. He had thought, at the time, he had been dreaming, but Dean had made  _that_  situation perfectly clear.

"Yeah, I did. I still have it. I'm sorry I had to...put it away, but there were...circumstances."

"That scared man. That was your big brother, wasn't it?" Her small voice is compassionate.

"Yeah. You...were way too much like monsters we sometimes hunt. He thought you were going to hurt me. It was an understandable reaction, actually, but...I'm sorry."

Amber shakes her head.

"I didn't know. I'm sorry too. It's just that when I found it, the opening, I had to try. I had to get through it."

Sam leans forward, a hunter on the scent for answers to his one predicament. "How? How did you do it? How did you get out?"

Amber purses her lips and drops her voice. "There are holes sometimes. They move. You mostly find them by accident if you find them at all. They boogeyman sometimes makes Unlucky Ones go through them and do bad things, and a few of us can sneak out when he's not looking. But not all of us can go, and we always get pulled back."

"But...not everyone can get out?"

"Like..." Amber glances at Patrick whose face is stony. "For some reason, some of us can squeeze out. Just for a little. But no, not everyone can. We don't know why."

Sam nods and thinks. "I know why. I mean...I might know why."

Amber's face lights up. "Really?" She scowls at Patrick. "I  _told you_  he was smart for a 4th grader."

Patrick leans over and puts a hand firmly over her mouth and rolls his eyes. "Shut up, I wanna hear why." He looks at Sam. "Okay, why?"

"Because in order for your souls to cross the barrier, you have to have a body connection point to something there. Like, a piece of hair that your mom cut from you as a baby and maybe kept in a locket, or if someone kept the first tooth you lost. Something like that."

Amber pulls Patrick's hand from her mouth. "My mom kept some of my baby teeth."

Sam nods as it all clicks into place. "That definitely would have increased your connection to our plane-er, our world. But because your actual bodies are stuck here, you can't really be totally free of this place. It's assurance that your souls can't move on."

"Yeah," Amber says, but her smile disappears. Sam can't blame her. When he had seen Amber's mother, the pain was raw. As if fourteen years of being without closure for her daughter had been but the space of 14 hours.

"Amber, your birthday present to me must have a little bit of you on it somehow. Maybe some hair got tangled in it."

Patrick pipes up. "So, because my lame parents didn't keep gross pieces of my body, I'll never be able to see them again?"

Sam takes a deep breath. Saying "yes" to that hurt too much. "I told you, I'm gonna get you out of here. Where you go after that...I think you'll see them again."

"And how are  _you_  gonna get out, Sam? Huh?" Patrick is upset. The pain is in his voice. The kid had been here for years, and he has been holding onto a hope that Sam has essentially just crushed.

Sam grimaces and looks away. "I don't know. But I will."

"Someone keep any pieces of you? Huh? Maybe a finger or a toe or something?"

Amber comes to Sam's defense.

"Stop it, Patrick. I told you, Sam's going to figure it out."

"Oh yeah? How? I mean, do we even know where the hole is right now? No! No one has  _ever_  found the hole on Vacation Day."

Amber glowers at the boy.

Sam sees maybe a full on ugly argument coming, and he's not so sure he deserves Amber's complete indignance anyway, so he quickly intervenes. "Wait, Vacation Day? What is that?"

"It's whenever the boogeyman goes out to hunt or whatever. We figured out that it's like every seven years or something because the new kids tell us what year it is." Patrick has no problem charging onward in spite of his friend's increasing agitation. To Sam, it means they've clearly been best friends for a long time.

"I'm telling you. For Sam it'll be easy!" Amber balls her fists, and she looks just as ready to sock the kid as he was to ignore her. Best  _best_  friends. Almost like siblings. And Sam would know.

Still.

Sam touches her arm gently. "Patrick's right, Amber. I don't...I don't have a plan. The plan was to get you out from the outside, not...get pulled in."

Amber looks back at Sam as if he has just started talking backwards.

"What do you mean? Can't you just follow the string?"

Sam blinks.

"Um..."

But he's not alone. Patrick is raising an eyebrow at Amber.

"What...string?"

"This one," she says matter-of-factly, and touches a finger to his chest, over his heart, and then runs her finger up, standing up as she traces the outline of it. "Duh? Can't you see it? How come you can't see it? It's bright bright red. Look."

Sam is looking. He sees nothing. Patrick catches Sam's eye and swirls his finger by his ear, goes cross-eyed.

Amber notices the gesture. Stomps her foot. Her hair shakes into her face further and as she sweeps it back with a flourish, and Sam sees the strong woman she could have become had she lived.

"Patrick Allen Dulin, I am  _not_  crazy." She turns to Sam. "You had to have made this, Sam. Somehow, you made the string. No one else comes here with a red string, but you did, so  _you_ had to have made it. It's special to you. I don't know  _why_  it's there, but it's there. I promise you, I'm not crazy."

She's not crazy. There was one thing Sam  _had_  done as a precaution to anchor him to the world.

"Oh my God..." He stands up slowly, carefully. Looks for the string. "I did do something. I made...I made an anchor...uh, a connection with my brother. With Dean."

"A connection?" Patrick asks.

"Wha... ye-yeah!" Sam runs his hand through his hair. He looks in front of him and behind, still searching for Amber's proof that it hadn't failed him. The pencil box, all of those pieces of Dean, not himself, that would lead him out of this. "I did make something, but I thought it would keep me from being pulled in, I didn't think it might be able to..."

He's dumbfounded. He's elated. For some reason, the thought that Dean, unconscious in the Impala, could still be saving his ass fills him with a flood of emotion.

Dean. Stupid Dean. His dumb jokes. His alcoholism. His smirk and his frown and the touch of his hand on his back when Sam's having bad visions, the tone of voice when he's worried. The hardness in his eyes when he's hurt and not showing it. The ridiculous way he talks to his car and his complete lack of shame when he eats cheeseburgers with porn sound effects-

And there, as Sam lets it all wash over and through him, he feels that tug again. That pull in his chest. And something reddish and thin begins to emerge.

"I can..."

"Can you see it?" Amber is excited. She half bends over, hands between her knees, her expression of joyful anticipation boosting Sam's spirit.

"Kind of... maybe. It's... It's this... this connection with my brother."

"Tell us about your brother," Patrick stands up; Amber's enthusiasm is infectious. "Talk about him or something."

Sam licks his lips, makes a half laugh. "My brother? He's an idiot. He's... reckless. He's impulsive and gets into way too many fights because... because that's how he deals with things. He fights."

It's working. The string is definitely becoming more defined.

"He's been looking out for me practically since I've been born like it's his job. I think he thinks it  _is_  his job. I mean, I know he does. It makes him... completely irrational sometimes but I know..." He stops.

"What do you know?" Amber urges.

"I know... that the guy loves me. Probably more than anything else. So. And it doesn't excuse him but. But."

"But you really love him too?"

Sam shakes his head, nods sheepishly. "Yeah, of course. He's my brother. And he's... all I've got."

"This is probably the grossest thing I've ever heard," Patrick makes a gagging face, but Sam's laughing because yeah. Too mushy for an 11-year-old boy.

"Yeah, Dean would be embarrassed if he heard any of it. Probably take a swing."

He touches a finger to the thread that he can now clearly see and then rubs the back of his hand over his eyes. Saved by toenail clippings and drain hair and old bolts. Sam laughs again, but he knows it's more than that.

And he can't wait to see Dean again, even if he's going to be beaten within an inch of his life for this reckless stunt.

"Sam, you can still get out. If you follow the string, you'll find the hole." Amber purses her lips and timidly takes Sam's hand. The body he sees as hers is not solid, but it's a connection as well. A connection to his purpose for being here.

"I don't get it, though," Patrick starts. "How come Amber could see the string and I couldn't?"

Sam squeezes Amber's hand. "I don't really know, but if I had to guess, I'd say that it's because the hair tie you gave me has been pretty much living inside the pencil box my brother gave me the same day you...were taken away. Dean himself put it in there originally, thinking I'd want to keep it, and it stayed there...through elementary school, high school, college...every time I opened it I'd think of both of you and him simultaneously. Maybe that somehow tangled you up with it, since that was the box I used to make my anchor."

"Well, it's a good thing, otherwise maybe you'd never have seen it!" Amber grins.

He looks down through the literal feet of space between his eyes and hers. "Yeah, and I'm gonna use it, but not until I can get you out for good, and not until I can destroy the boogeyman. Amber," he takes a knee so he can look her in the eyes. "How many of you guys are still here? Not faded?"

The little girl holds up a hand and starts to whisper names as she counts them on her fingers.

"Nine," Patrick supplies.

Sam's face falls. "Just nine?"

"Ten!" Amber corrects him. "You can't...you can't forget Emily." Her voice disappears at the end but Sam can clearly hear the hitch in her voice.

"Amber, Emily's not..." Patrick doesn't look happy either. "I hate to say it. You know we were friends first..."

The little girl turns her eyes on Sam. "There's a girl named Emily. She's the last Unlucky one that's still trying to be herself. But... but she is... she's starting to be like Charlie and Franklin and Missy and the others. Sam, we have to save her. We  _have_  to. And this is the best time to find her because it's Vacation Day and the boogeyman never keeps anyone during Vacation Day."

"Right. Makes sense that he's otherwise occupied." Unless he was lurking the hallways. Unless he was more preoccupied with Sam than anything else. But. "Okay, we're gonna find Emily too."

"Sam, are you really gonna save us?" she asks reverently.

Sam balks, but not because he isn't 100 percent sure he is going to save these kids or die trying. No. But the boogeyman was out there, somewhere, and for all he knew, it was healing and hearing his every word. How in the hell was he supposed to surprise this thing?

He nods finally. Because these kids might know something, and time was ticking. "Yeah. No question. But the boogeyman is still mostly a mystery-I need more information if I want to put it down for good."

Patrick looks down the corridor and back. "Well, if we find Emily, and she's not all gone, maybe she would know something. She's spent more time with the boogeyman than we have for sure."

Sam nods. "Okay, first step-find Emily as fast as we can. I don't know how much energy I'll have because of the gravity and the oxygen here, but I know that Vacation Day has an end, and we can't still be here when it gets to it."

* * *

Time has stopped. Not literally, but Sam gets now how these kids have lost track of time completely-his watch doesn't work. None of the dusty ornamental clocks in this place work either, though they would have run down long ago judging from the coating of dust on almost everything.

And this house...

Staircases that go up just to go down. Trap doors in ceilings that end in rooms too tiny to stand or store anything bigger than a music box. Sliding panels in the walls that lead to rooms that have no windows, no other exits.

Patrick and Amber call Emily's name quietly, in hushed whispers for fear of the more malevolent spirits in the house. Their pleas are desperate, and while Sam chimes in with them when he has the breath to do it, he can't help hearing Dean's voice over and over in his head after breaking down the motel door.

" _Sam? Sammy!"_

And he wonders if it's happening, if the window is closing and that his pencil case will be the only thing he's left behind for his brother to burn and bury.

Even Dad had, at least, left a corpse for Dean.

_Dad-_

Small thought that had had no time to really grow in the back of his head: back there, before the boogeyman appeared as his father, he heard his voice. John's voice, Dad's voice, grounding him, waking him up. Telling him to get it together.

He wasn't aware of it then, but he's sure of it now.  _That_  wasn't the boogeyman.

But if Sam could actually hear a voice from hell, so far it was just his father's. Emily was in a mental institution as a child because she was supposedly hearing the dead and damned before she even encountered this nightmare.

And, of course, it makes sense now. For whatever reason, the boogeyman is only interested in psychics who can hear things in heaven or hell. Or both. And it's been  _farming_  them for their talents.

And it  _has_  to be stopped.

Sam halts. They're in a corridor, one he feels like he's been through three times now. This method is getting them nowhere and if Emily is hiding from their foe, she's doing a damn good job of hiding from her friends too. Amber and Patrick have been whispering their calls, walking on eggshells not because  _they_  are in any danger from the restless spirits that haunt this place, but because Sam is.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

He takes a deep breath, fills his lungs as full of air as he can swallow-

\- and then shouts her name so loudly that Patrick and Amber jump.

"Sam! Shhhhh!" Amber tries to shush him as Patrick slaps a hand to his forehead.

"We don't have time, okay? Trust me."

Sam slams his fist on the corridor wall, and every pound feels like it's taking years off his lifespan. "Emily! It's Sam Winchester. If you can hear me, come to the sound of my voice. I'm not going to hurt you!"

Patrick throws up his hands. "Yup. That'll probably work. Too well."

"Shhhh!" Amber stands frozen in the now totally silent hallway. All three strain to hear the dust settle...

And then.

A knock.

Sam looks at Amber for a clue, but the little girl's lips are pressed together in anticipation.

"Sam Winchester. I know you."

It's a cold voice whispered at Sam's neck, but it's not a girl's voice and it's not the boogeyman, and when Sam turns quickly to see who it is, he has just enough time to see nothing at all, just as he is bodily slammed against the wall with enough force to cause him to slide to the floor in a heap.

This is becoming a bad pattern. Regaining his footing is made ten times more difficult by the fact that his body wants to stay down, his lungs are fighting to expand, and pencil pricks of bright lights are filling his vision.

He hears Amber shouting his name before the world comes back into focus and he's on auto-pilot. Years of training, Dad's, Dean's, and his own adrenaline propel him to his feet.

The candle lights flicker and dim.

"Sam, run!"

Amber's hand on his his feels like a Fourth of July sparkler raining hot, luminescent sparks and he's moving towards it as it pulls away.

"Emily! If you can hear me, find us!"

The corridor goes black, and Sam loses all sense of up and down. He's turning and tumbling in an industrial washing machine, and every time he manages to find his footing and get a few feet, he's rolled onto his side. He loses his connection with Amber over and over. Her voice is underwater, far away.

_I know you, Sam Winchester._

"Charlie, I'm not your enemy!"

Something glances Sam's head and then small-fisted blows begin to batter his legs, his stomach.

Charlie is a child,  _was_  a child. He's become an angry spirit, and nothing and no one will be able to reason with his pure hatred and it's heart breaking. To be maybe 12 years old and to have lost everything.

These children were innocent once. They had families and dreams and love. Whatever destroyed that deserves a fate worse than death.

But something is pushing at Sam's heart. A revelation. Maybe the only one that matters right now.

_Innocence prevails, even here._

Sam stops trying to protect himself. Opens himself up for the abuse. "Charlie! Charlie...do you remember your...your mom and dad?"

Hard to take a breath.

"Your house. Your...your bedroom. Remember your room? Where...where they tucked you in?"

Sam is taking a gamble-Charlie's life might have been absolute shit, in which case, he's screwed.

But it feels like the blows are slowing.

Maybe Charlie is remembering. Maybe there's enough left to recall something as simple as love.

A love that was lost.

It makes Sam angry. Not at Charlie, but what had been done to him. This was bullshit.  _Bullshit._  He had fought demons and monsters and vengeful spirits, but they had all had lives and chances to learn about the world, to grow up. They had choices. Charlie was just a little kid. He was supposed to have had more than just 10 or 12 birthdays...

Sam gasps.

_Birthdays..._

_Of course!_

Because today is Charlie's birthday, and Sam's birthday and Amber and Patrick and all the rest. It was one of the things they had in common. And once upon a time Sam had a birthday that was one of the greatest and worst of his life. When Dean gave him a hand-carved box with his name on it, and it was Sam's most cherished possession-

In the pitch dark and quiet, the red thread slowly illuminates, creating a path home off into the distance.

Maybe...maybe.

"It's... your birthday. You should get a present from someone...who cares about you because... because it only comes once a year."

It's silent, but Sam can feel the presence pull around him, listening.

Painfully, slowly, and in pitch-darkness, Sam finds his pocket. He draws out the little toy soldier figure he had swiped from the room he had appeared in hours? Minutes? Years? ago. He places it on the ground.

"Me... me and my brother. We... we used to have a load of these. Well, kinda like them. Green army guys. My Dad used them for... for teaching us strategy but Dean and I we just...just liked to play with them. They were cheap but... but..." Sam is struggling to breathe. One of his floating ribs feels bruised. Maybe broken. He's losing his thread of thought.

_Birthday..._

How did normal little kids celebrate birthdays? Sam has only seen it on movies and tv shows-cakes with candles, kids dressed with colorful conical hats and mountains of wrapped gifts. Never had a birthday like that in his life, but he remembered  _aching_  for one. Just once.

"Yeah, Charlie. It's your birthday. Your special day. I was...was going to keep this but I want to give it to you. It's a present. For you. Take it."

The silence stretches for so long that Sam thinks he might have actually passed out for a few seconds before a grinding sound behind him startles him and he rolls out backwards, unceremoniously, into a large room.

The wall closes up like a venus fly trap.

"Jesus," he whispers, and his eyes drift shut.

* * *

**1993**

**Sam - 10**

**Dean - 14**

Dean took a deep breath. Beyond the door to the basement was a monster, a vampire. And it was his fault it was here-that was important. It was  _his_  fault that Dad didn't go back to the nest to double check it when he had the chance because Dean had made Sam the priority. And yeah, it had seemed like a good idea at the time, but if it ended with both of them dead or worse...

Well, Dean knew he was all kinds of a fuck up, but this would be the absolute winner.

And vampires had over-developed senses. Might have heard him walk up each and every step and was now waiting for him right beyond this thin piece of wood. If his footsteps haven't given him away, his pounding heart might have.

Dean turned the knob with excruciating slowness. When the door was open a crack, he took a quick peek. And a split second after he determined there was nothing right there, he opened it all the way, exited, closed it quick and dirty, and headed for the stairs to the second floor as fast as he could.

Now he  _wanted_ to be heard.

_Come on, you sonofabitch. Come find me. Nothing to see in the basement anymore. Come find me you bastard, I got something for ya._

One good thing about a giant farmhouse-tons of real estate inside to exploit.

"I hear you, you know. Of course you know. Your daddy is a big bad hunter."

Dean didn't like how close that voice was already. He took stock of the upstairs. Yeah, one paint can holy water trap was tripped, and the fucker had taken the bait of the blood on the pillow in the first room.

"Come on, kid. I'm not gonna kill you right away. Let's have a little chat."

Dean ducked inside the first bedroom as fast as he could, but the vamp was on him. It grabbed him around the shoulders, pinning his machete arm, but Dean didn't hesitate to stab it in the meat with his sharpened stake. And that must have hurt like a bitch because it howled and let him go.

Dean turned with the machete, aiming high, but the vampire had recovered enough to backhand him so hard that Dean spun several feet on the salt skid and landed on the floor at the foot of the bed, just narrowly missing the glass trap.

By some miracle, he hadn't lost his grip on the weapon. When he recovered he finally got a good look at his attacker.

A guy. Turned probably in his early 20's maybe sometime in the early 1980's because he was rocking ancient punk attire - white t-shirt, ripped black biker jacket now with a bloody hole in one sleeve.

"Listen, kid. I get it. You were raised 'tough.' You think you gotta put up a big struggle. Go down fighting, right? But you know all of this is just for show. Not sure how you knew I was coming, but it doesn't matter. We've got all night to get to know each other. You, me, and the other kid who's probably in the basement too."

Dean had been sliding slowly backwards, next to the bed, getting some distance, trying to breathe, licking the blood at the corner of his mouth.

When the vampire mentioned Sam, Dean stiffened.

 _Fuck_.

"Your little brother, right? Yeah. Yeah I got all your scents. All over that fucking motel room. But he's not going anywhere, am I right? You and me, we can have a little talk." He shrugged his shoulders as he stalked his prey. "Well, I'll talk, and you can bleed. And break. A lot."

Two more inches. Dean scooted. Stopped. "Yeah. I got a better idea. How about you go fuck yourself."

The vampire chuckled. "Oh man, do you kiss your mommy with that mouth? Kids these days." The monster's face dropped from amused to feral in .5 seconds, the same amount of time it took Dean to reach under the bed and pull out the double barrel shotgun he had stashed there.

The first blast, right to the vampire's torso, actually threw the bastard back out the bedroom door, but it was still on its feet. Dean emptied the second barrel and the asshole was blown right over the rail with at least a six foot drop onto the stairs. And then a roll down the rest.

"Fuck!"

Dean had given himself a couple seconds to spare, but he was in a terrible position. If the vampire decided to go after Sam, all of this would have been for nothing.

He had to keep the thing's attention, keep it wanting to hurt  _him_ , kill  _him_ , first. And Dean couldn't even process the irony of that at the moment.

"Fuck you, and fuck your whole headless family." He shouted, dropping the now-useless shotgun. "You wanna hunt me you're gonna have to do better than that."

_Jesus Christ please let this work._

Dean opened the gigantic wardrobe in the room, got in, and shut it. With sweaty fingers he felt around for the latch to the fake back. It made almost no noise when it opened because Dean oiled it earlier and thank god. Just, thank god, because all he had between himself and an increasingly pissed off vampire were his wits and his tricks, and he wasn't sure for how much longer either could keep up.

_(to be continued...)_


	18. "The House that Winchester Built"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam figures out where he is (kinda) just in time for a visit from you-know-who. In the flashback, Dean's got clingy vampire problems...that are just getting worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO CLOSE to the end. So very very close. Thanks for hanging in there. Hopefully all of your expectations will be rewarded in these last few chapters.
> 
> As always, thanks to Agelade who tells me when I haven't described a stained glass window well enough. YOUR SKILLS ARE INVALUABLE!
> 
> Caladrius

 

 

 

 

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

**Chapter 18: "The House that Winchester Built"**

**May 2, 2007**

**Sam - 24**

**Dean - 28**

_Sam._

_Sam... don't say yes._

_Tingling on his cheek. Moans. A million moans-no screams. It's just one great agony of humanity and it's all stopped fighting. Writhing, muddy, bloody, cut and exposed, like a raw nerve, hot and cold at once and unending despair..._

_Sam. Please. Please don't say yes._

It's a soft voice... so soft, riding the waves of human suffering like a puff of dandelion down...

Sam opens his eyes and he sees her. The ghost of her, even more of a ghost than a ghost-a shade of a girl with dark hair and sunken eyes and frailty.

"Emily?"

He can see too much through her, and every once in awhile her image flickers like a guttering flame. But she nods her head.

"H...hey," he begins carefully, trying not to scare her off or, God forbid, attract one of the other restless spirits in this place. "We've been looking for you. Are you okay?"

She presses her lips together and her eyes start to leak tears.

"Don't say yes."

Her voice is barely a voice.

Sam sits up with effort, holding his side.

"Emily..." Sympathy floods where the pain is. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't say yes," she says a little more insistently, and it's clear that whatever she is trying to communicate is coming at a heavy cost.

"Okay, okay. It's okay. What do you mean?"

"Sam!"

Amber and Patrick literally just appear through a set of double doors. Amber hugs Emily and the other girl moans into her shoulder as Amber tries to pet her hair and comfort her.

Patrick looks down at Sam.

"What the hell happened?"

"Uh... not sure. It was rolling and dark, and then I was spit out here."

Sam sits up first, taking stock. The rib is just bruised, thank God, but it doesn't make it easier to breathe which is definitely not good news.

"I mean, how did you get Charlie to let you go?"

Sam shrugs. "I gave him a birthday present. Long story." Slowly he gets to his feet and examines this new room. A grand ballroom by the looks of it, but what arrests his attention from Patrick's questions and Amber's reunion with Emily are the two large stained glass windows that spill a permanent twilight across the dusty wooden floor.

His eyebrows come together and then his jaw drops open. He tucks his right arm close to his side as he takes a few tentative steps forward, staring at the words painted carefully on one of the elaborate stained glass windows.

"Huh. I know this place. I know it now."

"What?" Patrick says.

Sam's mumbling to himself. "I'm such an idiot... but the original furniture was all replaced after she died.  _This_  place probably has all of the originals, which is why I didn't recognize it until now."

"What? What place?" Patrick and the two girls are listening to him now as he turns around.

"Man, I always wanted to come here growing up, but my Dad said that hunters had been through it and there was nothing supernatural about it despite the claims." He looks to the ceiling, turns around, seeing his environment as if for the first time. "This is the Winchester Mystery house. Sarah Winchester was rich and she spent her life building a house non stop with weird stairways and useless rooms and secret passages. These stained glass windows were the final clue. They're unique because of these inscriptions. She had them made especially for her ballroom, and the ones here are identical to the ones still in the house I visited. See this one?" He points to the first window. "It says, 'Wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts.' and this other one, 'These same thoughts people this little world.' Both are lines from Shakespearean plays."

Patrick shakes his head. "Wait, so... this place... this place exists out there? In the world for real?"

Sam nods his head, "That's exactly what I mean. But how'd it get here?"

"I think the better question is what kind of drugs was that lady on?" Patrick mutters.

Sam licks his lips. "Not drugs. Sarah Winchester married the son of the man who invented the Winchester rifle. She had some tragedies in her life, like her husband and infant daughter dying, but she didn't start building the house until someone told her to."

"But who would tell someone to build a crazy house like this? And why would she even want to?"

Sam is thinking back. All those years ago, the charm of a mystery house with his own last name. He could never understand why their father wasn't even a tiny bit interested in at least stopping by  _once_. So Sam had done what he always did-he read about it. As much as he could. And there were enough compelling legends surrounding it to keep his imagination fueled for years until, finally, his first year of college at Stanford he and a couple friends traveled to nearby San Jose to see it.

And yeah, so sue him, he had to sneak in an EMF meter because  _come on_ , but it wasn't like he was on a job or anything. And it had been clean. Crazy and kind of fun, but clear of anything the meter should have picked up had supernatural entities really been in the place. So, how the hell...

"Sam? Hello? Earth to Sam." Patrick waves a hand at him and Sam blinks through the memories.

"Sorry, what?"

"I said, who told her to build the crazy house?"

"Oh. Uh," he thinks back. "It was some psychic from... Boston maybe? I think. Told her she should build it to hide from the spirits of the people killed by her father-in-law's guns. Something like that."

"A  _psychic_?" Amber breathes.

"Yeah. They said she even used to hold seances in the house, but like I said, nothing ever pinged a hunter's radar. No link to the supernatural."

"Sam, you said a  _psychic_ told her to build the crazy house," Patrick reiterates.

Okay, clearly the kids are riding a wavelength he isn't on. Sam shifts his weight and tilts his head.

"I'm missing something?"

" _We're all psychic, stupid!_ "

Patrick looks aghast at Sam's complete obliviousness. Amber puts a hand over her mouth and giggles. Emily's blank stare matches Sam's for a second before...

Oh.

Oh shit.

"Okay wait. What are you thinking? Are you thinking... that the psychic was actually channeling... the boogeyman? That the boogeyman told her to build the house?"

"Could he do it? Probably," Patrick tosses off. "All he does is mess with peoples' heads. Makes them believe their worst fears and stuff. Was this Winchester lady afraid enough of dead people to build a wackadoo house? Yeah. Looks like it."

Sam shakes his head, considers this. "All this time, hunters were all just focused on the house itself."

He felt like he had just failed  _Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader_ , but it brought out a smile. "Okay, so, wow. Good catch on that. Of course... not sure of the laws of physics that somehow mirrored the building of the house on that plane to this one, but connection? Yeah, I'd say a definite yes. Still... all the rooms. What's the purpose? What's the point?"

" _Why oh why oh why a Winchester house. Why oh why oh why oh why a home sweet home for Sam Sammy. Loves a mystery, other people's fears."_

Amber screams. Emily presses her hands to her ears and suddenly is just gone. Patrick steps through the wall clearly on impulse, on instinct, because that voice...

They all know that voice.

The temperature in the room drops to below freezing. It's not really possible that the ceiling, the walls, are being slicked down, coated from the top, in a sheet of ice. It's like something out of a movie or a dream, but Sam  _knows_  he's not dreaming and he can feel that cold. Or maybe he can't. It's almost impossible to tell reality anymore in this place. He steps away from the windows, towards the center of the room, eyes casting all around for the ambush and it sucks that there is no safe corner he can put his back against in this place.

The ice makes a tinkling crackling sound as it plasters over any possible egress out of the room, reaching tendrils to the floor. Sam's trying to keep calm, but nothing about this is good. If he loses his footing he's going to go down, hard, and he's been doing way too much of that lately.

Great, so, back to plan A-taunt everything that wants to kick his ass and bring it out while he still has the strength to fight it.

"Now you're just showing off. And I've seen way worse than this. If you want to scare me, you'll have to do better."

_Why a Winchester house for my Winchester? Is that what Sammy wants to know? Wanted a house because you'll be here for a long time, Sam Sammy. Forever. A long long time whispering things._

"Don't count on that," Sam responds.

The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere.

_Only safe place. Only safe place for Sam... don't you remember? Do you want to remember? Emily knows..._

Emily's ghostly frame and the only words she's spoken so far...

 _Don't say yes_.

But what could that mean?

_Sam wants to know, wants to see for himself._

The boogeyman's hissing taunts should just be irritating by now, but Sam can't shake them off. They are lifting something, getting under his skin, confusing him, walking through a door in his head that he could never really close and the proof is that he's here because of it.

_Knew you were coming... waited a long time for Sam..._

And then the ballroom and the ice begin to melt around the outline of an actual door. The water sizzles, condensation rises, the lights darken until there is no ice and no room, just a door outlined by licks of fire.

Now the panic is rising because this can't actually be happening but it is. And all of Sam's intellectual processes, that maybe the boogeyman has both physical and mental control of him now, are shutting down and giving way to instinct and a terribly seductive deja vu of something just out of reach in his memory.

 _It's your door, Sammy Sam. Go see. Leave everything here if you want. Go see the door, Sammy's way out. Yes, the_ only _way out..._

This door is familiar, and he shouldn't go towards it, but he's doing it. His feet are walking by themselves. He wants to know because knowing this was  _important_  at some point but he shut it all down, put it away. He terrifies himself with his willingness to put his hand on the handle. To turn the knob. To push the door open against the flames...

A blast of heated air from a furnace blows his hair, stings his face, singes his eyebrows and he tries to stagger back, but now the pull of it, the memory is inexorable. In agony and fear he raises his arm to try to protect his blistering face, but somehow he can still  _see_  it:

Yellow eyes _._

 _Go through the door, Sammy Sam Sam. They talk about you all day long. All day all night. Go through the door and leave here. That's what you want. See what's there... for you, for Dean. See what's there for you... in_ hell.

His shirts have burned off, his arm shielding his face is taking the brunt of the heat but he can't pull back and he can't get away and all he can do is  _burn_  and my God there are no words to describe this pain and his mouth won't work to even try to give them form.

His hair has seared off completely. He knows it somehow. He can't scream because his lips have blistered and bubbled away, his teeth and jawbone are exposed and charring, and he tries to not fall forward but the pain is so bad  _so bad_  that he almost wants it to be over with. Wants to just let the fire roar through him and burn him up and leave him quiet forever.

_Sam!_

He wants to let go.

_Sam! Fight back!_

It's not the boogeyman anymore.

_Sam, please! You're going to save us, you promised!_

Amber.

Sam gasps.

He's in a cold room and a monster is on top of him. An inky darkness with two reflective eyes inches from his own, rows and rows of piranha teeth, sadistic grin, and an almost hysterical red and white striped top hat that somehow makes it  _worse_.

And he can't breathe because of the huge hands around his throat, suffocating him. He scrabbles uselessly against the bony gloves, closes his eyes against the vision because it's horrible and it's in his head, and in a moment, he feels it, he's going to lose to it again and if he does that he  _will_  die.

It's hard to move and everything hurts and the pressure on his throat is stopping the blood to his head and his eyes feels like they are going to explode out of his skull and he has maybe five seconds left.

_One_

He bucks up as hard as he can.

_Two_

He bends his right leg.

_Three_

His hand reaches down to his boot.

_Four_

His fingers touch the hilt of his knife.

_Five_

With every last inch of his soul, with all the strength in the universe left to him, he stabs the boogeyman in the side with cold iron.

A shriek like the scratching of a hundred nails down a chalkboard raises every hair on Sam's body...

And then the pressure around his neck and the weight on his body is gone, and the ballroom is just a ballroom and Sam is somehow alive.

Alive and gasping. And crying. Because the tears are coming and he can't stop them and he  _needs_  to erase the last five minutes of memory from his life because he's not sure he can go on with the heat and the horror in his head.

"Sam!"

Amber's back and she's touching his face. Little sparkles of her get through, but Sam is not ready to face her or this fucked up place yet. He manages to turn onto his side and coughs, drags in painful breaths. He can start to feel sensation coming back slowly into his feet and he tries not to moan into the water leaking from his eyes, some vague and almost giddy fear that Patrick will see him as less than a man for it, but it's not possible to be entirely silent about it.

Amber's voice is soothing him, telling him he's okay now, and Sam feels endless guilt that he's comforted by it.

It's several more minutes before Sam can sit up, get his shit together, push things to the back, and remember what he's supposed to be doing.

Amber is sitting on the back of her legs, her little pink nightgown neatly tucked around her.

"Sam... are you okay now?"

He takes a deep breath. He can't truthfully answer yes to that, but relative to what he's been through?

"Y...yeah. Maybe."

She nods her head and purses her lips like she knows. And of course she knows.

"Not gonna lie though. The boogeyman... is the scariest thing I've ever fought." He tries to push a smile through for her sake, to let her know he is going to be fine, even if he doesn't think he will be for a long time. If ever.

"Yeah. He's scary." She agrees. "But I'm glad you woke up. We can't stop him and he was gonna..."

Sam nods. He gets it. "The boogeyman has a physical body, but he can get inside your head just by making eye contact once." He glances around the ballroom, remembers the ice, the fire. Shivers. "Hard to tell how much of it is real and how much is in your head."

"I'm glad your knife is real," Amber says, eyes falling on the blade covered in what could only be black blood. "I think you actually hurt him."

Sam picks up the knife. He's got nothing to clean it with, now, except a shirttail and he doesn't want boogeyman blood within a mile of his own.

"Yeah. He has a physical body. He can be hurt, but the trick is making sure you hit the right place. This knife is made out of cold iron, and that works against some spirits and monsters, but it's hard to tell whether the boogeyman is actually weak against it or if stabbing it was enough to run it off."

"Jesus." Patrick appears in the room. "Is Sam still alive?"

Amber gives him a wilted look.

"Okay okay. Damn. Hey," he sits down next to Amber and stares at Sam. "Okay, I'll give you badass points. No one survives a direct attack. Nobody. Ever."

And Sam can't help but wonder if that's why the boogeyman's targets are all almost defenseless children... which leads to the disturbing thought  _why am I worth the risk_?

"You mean... he did this thing... to you guys?"

Patrick shakes his head. "Nope. I mean, not to me or Amber. We just ended up pretty much starving. The Unlucky ones though... I guess he gets... impatient for whatever it is they have that he likes better."

"Like Emily?"

And speaking of Emily.

"Oh crap," Sam starts, looks around. "Where's Emily?"

Amber's chin tilts up, she scrolls her head to the right and left. "I don't actually think she went far. I think I can kinda feel her." And then to the air, "Emily, Sam's okay and _he's_  gone. Come back, please!"

Sam feels a creeping along his spine and sits straight up as Emily's form flickers hesitantly. She, too, is sitting on the ground, almost hovering over him. Sam feels bad that his first move is to draw away from her, but a lifetime of hunting spirits has ingrained some basic instincts.

"Emily."

"Don't say yes, Sam."

Sam's eyebrows draw together. She's tied up in all of this, the girl who can hear hell, who only repeats this cryptic plea over and over. But say yes to whom? The boogeyman? Something else?

Images of the fiery door spring back into his mind's eye and he has to let his curiosity go for now because he can't lose his focus. He has to get out, and Emily is right now the best chance of putting an end to the boogeyman's nightmares once and for all.

"Okay, okay," he soothes, "I won't say yes. But right now we need your help because you've been with the boogeyman and we need to know how to fight him. How to stop him. Can you... can you tell me something? Do you know anything?"

Emily's form flickers and for a second, Sam holds his breath.

She shakes her head.

The air leaves him feeling as deflated as he sounds.

Amber persists. "Emily, I'm really sorry, but can you... can you try to remember something? Even if it's scary and bad. Sam is the only one who can help us..."

"Freighter."

Sam blinks at the whispered word from the pale girl.

_Freighter?_

"What?"

"Oh Jesus, of course," Patrick groans. "She's lost it. Or we're screwed because there's just  _no_  way."

Sam stares at Patrick stupidly.

Amber touches Emily's arm. "Really, Emily? Are you... are you sure? Because he's..." She bites her lips. But Emily nods and repeats the cryptic word.

"Okay, I'm out of the loop here. What does freight have to do with this?"

"Not freight," Amber corrects him. "Freighter. Like. I don't know. That's what he calls himself if you see him. Freighter. He's an old old man, and we think he's the oldest one here, but he's really creepy and speaks in crazy gibberish and yells a lot."

Sam blinks. "Wait, you mean... you mean  _frater_?"

"Is there a stupid echo in here?" Patrick snarks. "Yeah, frater. That's the guy. Two things you learn as soon as you get here: hide from the boogeyman and don't go to the chapel. Ever. Frater is creepy as hell."

"Oh my God," Sam says with amazement. "Oh my God."

"What, Sam? What?" Amber starts.

"He's losing his shit," Patrick moans. "I  _knew_  it."

"No, no!" Sam says excitedly and leans forward, whispering, "There was a man once, hundreds of years ago, named Brother Luciano. He knew more about the boogeyman than anyone at the time or since. I mean, this guy chronicled his attempts to actually stop the boogeyman."

"Wait, and you think frater is this guy?" Patrick scoots forward having apparently decided Sam wasn't entirely off his rocker yet.

"I  _know_  he is." A surge of hope makes his fingertips tingle, and even though he has to keep whispering because he doesn't have enough oxygen for a lengthy explanation, his tone encourages their luminous faces to lean closer, hang on his every word. "When he was in his 60's he just... disappeared.  _Frater_  means 'brother' in Latin. As in Brother Luciano. Guys, he hasn't been talking crazy talk, he's been  _speaking another language_. Probably old Italian or Latin. That's why you can't understand him."

"Holy shit," Patrick whispers back. "You mean, this whole time we were all here with a boogeyman hunter and we just couldn't get it because he doesn't speak English?"

"Yeah. I mean, it all fits. It fits..."

"But Sam, how is that going to help us now?" Amber pipes up. "I mean, even if we find him and he's not..." She shivers, "too scary, how can he help us if we can't understand him?"

Sam smiles broadly. Laughs a little. Wants to laugh more because, holy crap, this might be the answer. "I don't know much old Italian, but I know my fair share of Latin. I don't have any of my books on me, but if  _Frater_  is still intact somehow after all of these years then that means he's found some way to fend off the boogeyman and he might be able to tell us what his weaknesses are."

"I can't believe I am about to willingly lead someone to the chapel," Patrick groans.

"If you're too scared, I'll do it." Amber says, jumping up like a pink bullet.

"Pfff. Yeah right!" Patrick stands up, looks down at her, but Amber is sticking out her tongue.

Sam chuckles. He turns to Emily and smiles. "Thanks. And hang in there, okay? Just hang on a little longer."

She looks like she's going to cry. She touches his shoulder and her mouth opens to say something, but nothing comes out.

"Hey, it'll be okay."

Her face doesn't look any happier, but Sam stands up, finds his bearings.

"All right, let's get to the chapel. I'm running out of time."

* * *

On the way to the chapel, Sam scrolls through what he knows about the physics of this plane. So far, fire emitted warmth, gravity was constant, if a bit staggering, and the air was breathable if thin. Dust and the smell of mold suggested that some microbial creatures were alive here, and that meant that the atmosphere was likely similar to the one he knew.

The house was a puzzle. How had it gotten here? And what lay outside? Every window looked out onto a landscape of nothing. A watery gray light was all that could be seen, as if the house was permanently encapsulated by a thick fog. When asked, the kids admitted they didn't know what was outside. All of the doors and windows were locked even against their spirits. Barred. At least in their experiences. And while Sam was naturally curious he was also cautious. There was no way to tell if the atmosphere outside the house was poisonous or worse even if he could find a way out, and despite his logic and rationality, he couldn't help but remember the house from the movie  _Beetlejuice_  where killer sand worms roamed beyond the house's borders in the netherworld...

All the way to the chapel, Emily flickered. Frequently she turned her head to give him a sad, soulful gaze which Sam interpreted as pity. And, frankly, that was a bit off-putting considering how much more pitiable she was. Amber held her hand, and the two of them and Patrick walked in front of him.

"So, hey, can I ask a question?" Sam breaks into one of Patrick's Frater ghost stories. Apparently ghost stories among ghosts could still instill fear in a youthful imagination.

"Yeah," Amber said readily.

"Where are all the other kids? I mean, I've only seen you three and Charlie, kind of. So."

Amber shrugs. "Hiding probably. Watching maybe. They don't have to be seen, and actually, Sam, um... since you seem to be bringing the boogeyman around a lot even on Vacation Day, they're probably kind of scared to be around you. But that's not your fault."

Sam's shoulders drop a little at that. Common sense, really. He should have figured that out himself. He is a target and the boogeyman is scary enough to him let alone the souls of kids he's been tormenting for years.

"Yeah. I guess you guys are the brave ones then," he tries to smile, but he knows it doesn't reach his eyes.

"Or the stupid ones maybe," Patrick snorts.

Amber reaches over and pushes Patrick. She turns to Sam and her grin is soft. "I'm glad you're here, Sam. I knew you'd come. And I believe you."

He feels the moisture spring to his eyes without warning. Her faith, after being told for so long he could never do this and succeed by his own brother, is an injection of confidence into his conviction.

It turns out that the double doors to the chapel, besides being solid oak except for a cross-shaped stained glass window inset at the top, are, apparently, locked.

"Oh yeah," Patrick makes a face. "You can't just, like... go through them."

Sam chuckles and hunkers down to examine the keyhole, blowing into it briefly before peering into it. "Actually," he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his tools. "I can go through them pretty efficiently. Compared to the locks I've picked in my life, this is really nothing."

He can't help the grin on his face as Patrick processes this information.

"Hey, Amber, your boyfriend is totally a criminal."

But his expression is one of respect, not contempt.

" _He's not my boyfriend_ ," Amber says hastily. "And besides, you already know he's a good person, so quit it."

The ancient keyhole gives way and Sam stands up to point to his handiwork with a self-deprecating grin.

"Yeah, practically a saint. But I bet I'm losing 'good' points breaking into a church."

"No," Amber cuts in. "It's not like that. Tell him, Patrick," she encourages.

Sam turns to Patrick, looks at him for an explanation.

"Well, I know when people are lying." Patrick supplies. "I mean, that's my... psychic thing. I can't explain it, it's just a feeling. I can't read minds or anything or see the future or whatever but if a person is a cheater or a liar, I know right away."

Sam's eyebrows raise. "Wow. Really? That could be... really handy."

"Yeah. But it's not as great as it sounds. I constantly got in trouble for calling people on their bullshit. Do it a couple of times and you find out how much people really enjoy their lies. Like, sometimes so much it's messed up."

Sam thought of Dad. Of Dean... of himself sometimes.

"Yeah. I maybe see what you mean."

"Anyway, Sam, you're okay. At least, you're trying to believe all the stuff you say so maybe it's worth hoping a little. And the door is open." Patrick gestures, "So have fun with Frater if you find him."

And for the second time in ten minutes, Sam feels his resolve reaffirmed.

"Seriously, you don't mind if we just... watch from here?" Patrick adds quickly.

"I don't mind. Whatever you guys need to do to feel safe. Believe me, I don't blame you for anything." Sam drops his hand onto Patrick's shoulder. The familiar tingle is somehow warm even if it's not solid. And then Sam steps over the threshold.

* * *

**1993**

**Sam - 10**

**Dean - 14**

Dean stepped over the threshold from the wardrobe's hidden wall passage into another dark room, heart pounding. He could hold his breath, make no noise, but he couldn't keep that damn chest muscle from banging against his ribs and he couldn't make himself perfectly calm.

If he spared a second at the time to think of how lucky it was that they had holed up here and not some motel somewhere, it might have done some good. A motel would have been a death trap. This old farmhouse, used as a kind of way station for hunters, had at least been stocked with resources. But Dean's time had been limited, and there was still the little brother in the basement trapped in his head with a boogeyman. If, at any point, this vamp got tired of chasing Dean, Sam was as good as dead.

Only problem was, taunting a vampire on a solo mission was, by itself, practically suicidal. But Dean couldn't die. Not now. Not like this. Because unless he could somehow coordinate dying  _and_ taking the vamp out at the same time, dying would just give Sam over that much sooner.

_Fuck._

Laughter coming from the bottom of the stairs.

"You know, kid? I gotta say, you've got guts. More guts than your old man attacking a guy's home in the middle of the day."

The voice at least gave Dean an idea of where the damn thing was.

"Seriously. This is some little job you've done. Not dumb. I kinda like that. Futile, of course, but I'll give credit where it's due."

Dean was in the back bedroom. Machete in one hand, mini flashlight in the other, he gave the room a quick once-over. Yeah, untouched. Fangs hadn't been back here yet. After figuring out his blood-on-pillow ruse in the other room, it probably thought it was a distraction to keep it upstairs which is why it came back down instead of exploring further, and it hadn't been wrong. Totally. Dean turned the flashlight to the floor to find the end of the cord where he left it an hour ago. He ducked and grabbed it just before he turned off the flashlight and tucked himself next to a dusty bookshelf to wait.

"Maybe I'm going about this all wrong. I mean, your dad's left you here. Alone. Guess he does that a lot. I know all about the absent dad deal-mine jetted when I was eight. Mom became a crack whore. You know, the whole sob story. But then I found my real family. It's not as bad as you think, kid. I mean, if it were, you think I'd have been following your sorry asses for weeks to avenge them?"

Dean pursed his lips. The vamp had been walking slow, stalking the stairs, the landing. It turned towards the first room, stopped at the door there, and then kept walking.

So, yeah, it probably was close enough to hear his heartbeat, and that meant it had at least a 25 foot reach on that. Probably more. Good to know if he could ever manage to get enough in front of it.

Dean stuck to the side of the bookshelf like flypaper, sweaty hands on the machete handle and the cord.

A deeper darkness blotted out the rectangle of semi darkness in the doorway-a few seconds of total silence in which Dean could feel it searching for him with its eyes, not just its ears.

"Kid, don't bother with the sneak attack. I know you're in here."

Dean squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them.

_Seriously, man. Sack up._

New plan. If he could keep the monster's attention on him, maybe it wouldn't notice the other stuff in the room.

He stepped away from the bookshelf.

"You're a chatty bastard," he said in his toughest voice, holding the machete at chest level, making it a point of focus.

The vamp half laughed. "What can I say, I've never been shot once before, let alone twice. Kinda bracing. Hurt like hell though, so, I mean, I'm gonna owe you for that, but maybe it doesn't have to end all the way for you."

"What the hell are you talkin' about?"

_Just step right in here, asshole. Come on, you've been walking and talking just fine til now._

"I'm talking about changing your lifestyle. Like, a trade off. You get an  _un_ lifestyle, but you'll be living in ways you can't imagine."

Dean shifted his weight slightly as he began to actually pay attention to what the monster was saying.

"Wait. Is this some kind of invitation to the vampire prom?"

"Hey, you got some skills and an attitude. You'd be pretty fantastic on this side of life. And, bonus, it would probably piss daddy off bad."

Dean laughed. Really laughed. Because,  _seriously_?

"Oh shit, man. You're gonna need a much better pitch than that to get me to play on your team. You haven't met my Dad but you've seen what he can do. Solo. He's not exactly the kind of guy that just waits in the living room after curfew to ground a kid. Trust me, neither of us wants to piss off my Dad. At this point, your best bet at keeping your own  _unlifestyle_  is to basically get the fuck out and get gone. Fast."

It couldn't be this easy, just convince the vamp to leave, but every second Dean bought was a second for backup to arrive, to think of strategy, to stay alive.

"Yeah, I somehow don't think daddy's gonna get back before we resolve this one way or the other. How old are you?"

"Old enough to blow you away with a shotgun. Twice."

The vamp smirked.

"Yeah, touché. Take my offer, kid. It's the best you're gonna get."

"Why don't you come in here and make me?"

"Oh, you mean, like, rush in all gung ho and hobble myself on all the rusty nails you've got laying down on the floor?"

_Well, shit._

"Yeah, I don't think that's gonna happen."

Dean's palm was slippery on the machete handle, his grip so tight he was losing sensation in his fingers. He wanted to wipe it down, but that would mean letting go of the cord.

And then the vamp did start to move into the room. Carefully. Toeing Dean's makeshift caltrops to clear a path.

"I think maybe you're cornered in here. Unless you somehow jump out the window. But then if you break a leg, it's game over and you know that. You're not an idiot."

_You're right about one thing at least._

Dean took a deep breath. His heart picked up the tempo, and that could send the message that he was scared out of his mind, which he was. A mixed blessing. He tried to watch the vamp's feet and face at the same time, focus on them both so it didn't catch him focusing on one crucial place on the floor.

"You're still alive because you got stones. I figure, even if I kill you all off, I'd still be alone. You're kinda young to turn, but you could be like a kid brother. And, believe me, when you get the blood and you see how it could be, you'll toss this old life behind you in a second."

_Just one more step._

"I already got a brother, and he's all I want."

"Well, then, that's too bad because-"

But it didn't get to finish its sentence.

Dean stood back and pulled the cord until the muscles in his arm felt like they'd snap.

It was a makeshift tripwire constructed of three lengths of Venetian blind strings, tripled up and knotted for durability, laying hidden under the nails.

The cord came up, went taut against the lamp hook he had pounded into the wall earlier, hit the skinny vamp's legs and threw it right down, face first, into the upturned nails.

It screamed and writhed which had the bonus of increasing his crappy trap's effectiveness.

"Like you said, I'm no idiot you sonofabitch."

Dean leapt right to the edge of the nails. It was a stretch to keep himself from falling into his own trap, but he had to try to get the machete to the damn thing's neck,  _now._

"You fucking little-!"

Dean raised his arms, fast. He wasn't sure if it was going to be a clean shot in the darkness, but he had to take it. And then he drove himself down.

At the last second, Dean's forward momentum was stopped by a hand on his wrist. Nails elongated into claws, it jerked him off balance.

"Fu-!"

Before the swear word could get all the way out his lungs, his arm was pulled down and what felt like a hundred razor edges dug into his flesh. It was like being on fire, and his heart clenched up as if the damn thing had physically grabbed it. And Dean knew,  _knew,_ it was already sucking his blood.

"Unnh!"

The vamp's other hand grabbed his shirt. In milliseconds it was going have its fangs in his neck. In milliseconds every choice he could ever make in life would be taken from him.

Dean was running on pure adrenaline, pure killer instinct. He somehow managed to grab the machete from his pinioned arm and slashed. It wasn't his dominant hand, but his swing managed to hit meat and he struck out again and again and then he was falling backwards and he was somehow fucking  _free_  for the moment. For the second.

And Dean didn't wait. He pulled his wrist to his chest, tried not to think about how it felt to have his blood sucked-strangely compelling, almost seductive-by a  _guy_  no less, and heaved himself to his feet.

"You little cocksucker. When I'm done with you..."

It was gurgling, but not dead.  _Goddammit not dead_. But it was bleeding and so pissed off and Dean didn't have time to cover his escape with a clever ruse, so he slammed the side of his uninjured hand against the panel and got into the wall as the vampire swore at him and started to find its way out of his nail trap. Dean knew that even if he managed to hurt it, hobble it, it was going to heal. And heal much  _much_ faster than he could.

And Dean was bleeding. Bleeding good. He needed five seconds to deal with that or he was going to pass out.

The machete arm struck out to help him navigate in the darkness. He went left, further around the back of the room, stumbling gracelessly in the process, needing to put some space between himself and the clingy and deranged monster inside.

Breathing hard, Dean bit the machete handle in his mouth to free up his good hand and ripped the bottom of his shirt artlessly. He wrapped fast. It was all he could do. It was quiet out there and probably that wasn't a good sign but...

The wall exploded a foot behind him. An arm reached through and Dean almost tripped over his feet trying to get away from it. He stumbled against the outer wall and tried to back away.

_Sonofabitch!_

"Where do you think you're going, kid?"

Oh shit. That laugh sounded  _really_ crazy _._

"I tasted you. You're fucking bleeding a river. There's  _no_ way you're hiding. You got me? I can find you here, there, in fucking  _Egypt_ now. You thought you were boned before? Just wait. Just you fucking wait."

Dean grabbed the machete from his mouth and raised it to hack at the arm he could see, and then it disappeared only to peel two feet of the wall away.

_Oh, fuck!_

Dean turned and did his best impression of running for his life in the opposite direction in the pitch darkness and barely one foot of crawl space he had.

This was bad. This was  _really_  bad.

"Rats in the walls. Well, you know what you gotta do with a pest like that..."

_Dad! Sam! God! Anyone!_

(to be continued...next chapter it's the dual showdown you've been patiently waiting for!)


	19. "The Battle of Evermore"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The uninterrupted climax of everything. Enough said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many thanks, and a fruit basket, to Agelade who spent a pretty intense 28 hour editing session with me to help this chapter be all that it could be. She probably also deserves a medal for my whining and confusion and general dumbness, but the end result is a great chapter. THANKS, PARTNER. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and reviewing, everyone!
> 
> -Caladrius

 

 

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

**Chapter 19: The Battle of Evermore**

**May 2, 2007**

**Sam - 24**

**Dean - 28**

Sam steps into the chapel.

The air in here does feel different, likely because it's been shut in for an undetermined and lengthy period of time. So far Sam has been up and down staircases that lead to rooms with five doors, corridors that simply end, and experienced plenty of other oddities in the house, so a chapel on top of it all no longer seems weird. Still, there is definitely a unique feel in these walls, and the structures he can see don't match the rest of the architecture at all. For one thing, the peaked arch of the stained glass windows and their classical depictions, while still universal motifs of Christian construction, seem somehow older than the rest of the house. Chunky, short pews, only eight per side of a narrow center aisle, rest in a diagonal layout to the front where a modest high altar sits upon a raised dais. The floorboards creak at every step. Dust covers the wood in a fine layer, but there are no crucifixes in this place that he can see. And that's unusual.

And then Sam remembers something else.

There was no chapel in the Winchester house.

Tiny goose bumps itch under his shirts; the hunter's sense that he'd been trained to hone since he was a child tells him he isn't alone in the room.

"Frater Luciano?"

Sam's voice is a sin in this place. The uncomfortable feeling of it persists even when the silence settles again, and Sam is starting to understand why none of the children come here.

"Frater Luciano,  _et est nomen meum Sam Winchester._ "

Introducing himself in Latin is easy enough. He isn't a native of Rome or anything, but as long as at least one of Brother Luciano's languages is, in fact, Latin and not actually insane gibberish, this might work.

But the silence after his greeting stretches on.

"Frater Luciano, um...  _Mihi ... opus est... opera tua._ Er, wait.  _Mihi opus est_ auxilium _tua. Auxillium._ I think. Your help. I need your help."

Adding the English doesn't exactly make him more understandable, but it helps Sam work it out. Hopefully Frater Luciano has enough of himself left to understand his gist and laugh off any poor sentence construction and vocabulary.

But the chapel is quiet still.

Sam walks towards one of the stained glass windows. It is a scene from the New Testament: the Pentecost, an event 50 days after Christ rose from the dead when the Holy Spirit descended in tongues of flame to rest on the heads of the disciples. It was a gift from God, a gift of knowledge and courage and, coincidental to the situation at hand, it enabled them to speak different languages.

The blocky, stylized hands of three disciples with halos are raised above their heads, tilted to receive the blessing. The tongues of fire are large chips of yellow and orange-painted glass.

The longer Sam stares at it, the more he's drawn into it. The facets of the glass, the color. Is it his imagination or do the figures in their ancient lead casings seem to move, their hands reaching not for heaven, but for him...

_Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum..._

Sam squints his eyes. Backs up from the window.

_Adveniat regnum tuum..._

It is a hum, a chant, woven in fraying threads that catch Sam's clothing, wrap around his chest. He feels the words in his lungs, but he is not speaking.

_Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra..._

He knows this. He knows this he's read this heard this before...

Heat pools in his cheeks, in his brain, fogging the tune, but Sam  _wants_  these words. He wants them and reaches past the strings into his chest as the dove in the glass watches, as the tongues of flame float in the air around him, as it descends on him...

_Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris..._

Sam's mouth opens. He knows this prayer. The Lord's Prayer. He knows it now...

And he knows the end...

_Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil..._

"Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo."

_Amen._

"Amen."

They finish together, the chant and Sam, and the spell is broken.

He's standing in an ancient chapel in front of a window of the Pentecost and he's Sam Winchester and before him is a desiccated spirit of a man in brown robes.

Sam swallows. He can see why the children would catch one glimpse of him and have stories for a lifetime.

Time and this place, and possibly the boogeyman himself, have not treated Brother Luciano's soul well. His face is gaunt, dried. Wisps of what was once white hair still cling in thin mangy patches from his scalp. Cheeks sunken to points pull what flesh is left back from a skeletal grimace. The robes hang loosely, frayed and worn.

Sam isn't sure what he was expecting. This might have been it. To still even have a soul intact after a thousand years was probably a superhuman feat.

He stands up straight.

"Frater Luciano..."

_Sam... mea culpa... mea culpa..._

The voice is puff of smoke between them. Sam has to strain his mind more than his ears to hear it.

 _Mea culpa-_ my fault.

Sam shakes his head. "No. No this isn't your fault. It's not your fault. None of this is. Um.  _Non est tua culpa._ " And despite the situation, Sam can still feel pity for a creature who has been clinging to his guilt for a millennium, whatever that guilt is. They were all trapped here.

The vision shakes his head. It comes closer, eye sockets so dark and hollow, and yes, Sam has to work a little to keep his ground. Old habits are hard to break.

_Id est, id est. Ego te vidie. Et dedit illi scientiam._

It takes Sam a few seconds to break it down. The words try to disappear seconds after they resolve in his head. He winds up translating it from the end first, but as the words begin to rearrange in English, he feels the blood leaving his face.

"You...  _you_  told the boogeyman. About... me? You knew?  _Sciebas?_  Even... even back then?"

The image flickers. And then the head tilts down in a grave nod that is now just as literal as figurative.

"Wh...why?" Sam breathes. If what he thinks he understands is true, then...

_Then the boogeyman has been waiting for me for a thousand years..._

And that just seems too crazy. Too far-fetched. Like something out of a nightmare.

_Et non intellexi..._

The words are mournful. "You... don't understand?" It takes Sam a second to recognize the tense. "No, you  _didn't_  understand. Back then. You didn't know what he was going to do. You didn't know."

_Et non intellexi..._

"But... you do now." It's a statement. Sam works to keep his breathing even. And then all desire to know how to kill the boogeyman is lost in this. And he needs to know. He  _needs_  to know why and how he's involved. "Tell me."

The shade answers by slowly turning. And then it's gone only to flicker into existence again at the front of the chapel near the wall of the high altar. It lifts a hand. Points a bony finger to the wooden wall.

Sam doesn't hesitate. He joins the spectre at the wall and stares at it thinking there might be some writing, some symbols, to lead him further down this rabbit hole. But he sees nothing.

He puts his fingers against the wood, traces the grain, but nothing happens and nothing is here.

"I don't... um.  _Ego... enim... nihil video._ I don't see anything. _"_

The apparition continues to point for long seconds afterwards, and then it floats into the wall and is gone.

Sam's eyebrows draw together. Did Brother Luciano abandon him because he couldn't understand the cryptic directions? Had the spirit given up because Sam had failed? Again?

But then a disembodied hand emerges from the wall, causing Sam to jump back. It slowly gestures for Sam to follow. To come.

Through a solid wall.

And perhaps Brother Luciano doesn't know that Sam's got a body and he's not dead, but maybe...

Okay maybe there's another way. And then Sam remembers what Patrick said, that there were secret passages. Hell, Charlie had held him captive in the ballroom wall. And if there was a way out of there then...

Sam's fingers go to the worn wood. They sweep up and down searching for some lock, some mechanism, some pressure point. His patience begins to give out just as he finds that the crease between wall panels gives near the floor. Prying his fingers inside, the whole panel shudders. A few more seconds of his shoulders rounded and his breath coming in labored gasps and the panel opens completely to yawning darkness. He grabs a candle and a packet of matches from his pocket and makes himself a meager torch.

The first thing that grabs his attention as he steps over the threshold is something so alarmingly familiar it makes him homesick.

A broken salt line. An honest-to-God salt line.

He bends down just to make sure his eyes aren't deceiving him and mutters reverently, "Holy crap, you really were a hunter."

When he looks up to the edge of the candle's light, the scene becomes macabre and strange.

Well, now Sam knows where all the crucifixes have gone-lined up neatly around the exterior of a ring of salt like an added layer of protection, or maybe comfort. In the middle of the circle lay a pile of rags and shrunken leather skin that is clearly the last resting place of Brother Luciano's mortal body.

Sam lets out a breath. It's a sad sight, and in his mind's eye he imagines the man who had done this, who built a last stronghold and slowly starved within it, surrounded by the comforting images of his beloved suffering Christ.

But, of course, Brother Luciano's soul has not rested in peace. The salt ring that must have protected him, at least in life, begins to explain how his spirit has managed to not fade completely with time. Now it hovers just beyond its physical remains outside the salt circle, forever unable to get back inside it.

Sam nods soberly and sighs. "I get it now. I understand.  _Intelligo._  You holed up here."

The spectre points to his body and raises dark sockets to Sam's face.

Sam gets that the ghost is trying to tell him something else. Just finding his body is not enough, it seems. He draws close to the circle and begins to hunker down to the remains when Brother Luciano continues to gesture forward.

_Circulus..._

"You want me... to get into the circle?"

As soon as Sam steps over the salt line he feels a shift. A difference. It's not more air or a relief from the gravity. It isn't anything that he can really define except...a feeling of security. Of silence. As if he's in this place but out of it at the same time. Sam's eyebrows draw together as he looks around. Nothing is different to his sight, but he can  _feel_ it.

Sanctuary.

"Wait... this didn't just protect you from the boogeyman," he begins as it starts to come together. "It... it actually  _hid_  you from him. He couldn't find you. But there has to be something more here than just salt." Because back in Osseo, Sam had completely ringed the inside of the closet with salt and still had a conversation with the boogeyman who could see him just fine.

The spectre points again. Just outside an edge of the circle near his body is a fragile sack of deteriorating burlap containing what was likely the last of the salt.

_Beatus est... beatus_

"It's... blessed salt. You blessed it?  _Beatus?_ "

The image nods.

"So... you used the blessed salt to escape the boogeyman's detection while you lived?"

Sam's heart is starting to beat harder because he's just learned something important, undeniably useful for plotting against a creature that could be virtually anywhere in this labyrinth at any time, watching.

Brother Luciano nods again, but not before a hesitation.

Sam understands why. For Brother Luciano, even the blessed salt hadn't been put up fast enough to save everything.  _Receptores Divinas._ He was in his 60's when he disappeared under unknown circumstances, but however he got here he also would have been valuable, attacked relentlessly, because he was the first chronicled person who could supposedly hear Heaven and Hell, if his book was to be believed.

"You figured out how to hide, but,"  _Mea culpa. My fault._ "It was too late for some things. Too late because he used you first for information about others. About me." Sam squeezes his eyes closed. " _Sero. Circulus est sero._ "

Brother Luciano nods. Points down to the ground.

_Vide... Sam. Vide._

Sam obeys and brings the candle down to the holy man's body for a closer look. Something in the dust. He reaches out and carefully pulls up a dried up leather satchel. Carefully he runs a palm over an embossed cross, and opens it.

Sam sits on the ground in the circle next to the body and begins to pull things out. A glass vial with nothing in it. Probably holy water, long evaporated. Sam removes a small crucifix, hand whittled from two pieces of wood as well as a long writing quill and a squat glass container of what was probably once black ink, though it's now empty. The next item is a flat, round, dusty object of a decent heft for its size that extends from one end into something that might be a handle. Taking it by that end, Sam rubs the object across his jeans several times and suddenly the small candlelight is magnified by two. When he holds it up, he can see his reflection with decent clarity even though it's not the conventional design he's used to in the 21st century.

"A mirror?"

He turns it around and rubs again, finds the same reflective surface on the back. It's nothing that he's ever seen before, even though its use is commonplace. Grabbing the candle, he brings it closer to study its surface. Some tiny pitting on the edges and the heft of it suggests a kind of stone.

"Hematite maybe?"

_What would a monk want with a mirror?_

The corner of his mouth quirks up. "Well, I mean, it's convenient you brought your own. The original Winchester house was said to only have, like, three mirrors total and the staff weren't allowed to have them."

Now that he's looking into it, Sam can see the dark circles under his eyes, the pale cast to his skin even in the warm glow of candlelight. It's a sobering reminder that he has work to do and time is running out.

Carefully he lays the ancient mirror on the ground next to the other two items and empties the rest of the bag.

The last and most precious thing in the satchel: A book bound in leather. With infinite care Sam opens it, wincing at the cracking of the leather and spine at the smallest movement, but it's still remarkably preserved in this dry, permanent environment.

He brings the candle closer to read whatever page he can safely turn to.

It's difficult, at first, because the letters are so stylized, the ink faded, but he can make out a few things-he can make out enough.

"Holy crap... this is... this is your journal? You wrote... you wrote while you were in here?" Sam's jaw is slack as he hungrily devours the Latin. Latin! Thank God! Latin, and not old Italian. His fingers tremble and his vision blurs because his eyes are tearing. A living, breathing boogeyman hunter had spent his last days writing in a protected salt circle because... because.

"You knew. You knew all along I was coming and left it for me. You knew..."

He was shaking.

_Potes... potes... Sam Winchester. Potes..._

Sam raises his gaze. " _Potes?..._ I can... do what?"

_Potes interficies... Potes interficies..._

Sam's eyes go wide.

The chill running along his back is suddenly interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Sam? Sam!"

Patrick. But there's a desperate edge to it that has Sam on his feet in a split second.

"Patrick?" Book in hand, Sam grabs the candle and rushes from the hidden room. Patrick has ventured just inside the chapel door, further confirming that something has gone wrong. "What happened?"

"He... he came. He just came. He came and he grabbed the girls away. He grabbed Emily and Amber, just like that! I couldn't... I tried, Sam. I tried!" The boy's ghost is breaking down. "He was pissed... he was pissed. He was  _really_  pissed off at you, Sam. Oh my God, could he, could he fade both of them?" While Patrick shudders out this horrific information, Sam makes his way quickly across the chapel, drawing deep breaths just to do that much. He can't hold Patrick, comfort him, not really, and at the moment his own heart is sinking in his chest, but Patrick is descending into hysteria and his words are disintegrating into nonsense.

"Okay, okay. Patrick, you need to calm down. Do you hear me?" He goes to one knee so he can meet the boy's eyes. "Tell me what happened. Just... just take a deep breath," probably useless for a ghost but, "and tell me what happened. We'll get them back. We will."

Sam's had time to practice his game face, and right now Patrick needs to believe that everything will be okay, but Sam has to make sure he has conviction in whatever he says because Patrick will know if he's lying and that won't help anyone at this point.

Apparently at the moment his conviction is holding because Patrick's psychic senses are not calling him out for simple bravado.

Patrick closes his mouth, opens it again. "We were just... just waiting for you outside like we said. And then... and then he just... appeared. And his face was... goddamn, Sam, his face was so scary. And he said... he said that if Sam Winchester could play a game of hide and seek then so could he. And the girls screamed and then they were all just... gone."

Hide and seek.

So Sam really had dropped off the boogeyman's radar in the circle of salt in that room?

"Patrick, do you know where he might have taken them?"

The boy shakes his head. "No. We never know anything. Even the ones who come back, like Emily, they don't know exactly where they go."

Sam pushes down the panic. His time table has just been moved up, but he had never been closer to an answer than he is now.

"Okay, Patrick, I need you to listen to me because we don't have much time. And I need you to suck up your fears, here, and help me because right now we're the only two who can do this. Okay? Can you do that? For Emily and Amber?"

Something about Sam's speech appears to galvanize in the boy's face-the crushed eyebrows smooth, he is resolute.

"Yeah. Okay. For Emily and Amber. Okay I can... I can. I want to help. Tell me what to do."

Sam breathes out a fast breath. "You have to trust me and come with me. We can't talk here. I found Frater. I'm not gonna lie, he looks scary, but he's on our side, Patrick. He's on our side. Please."

Sam gets up, turns, and walks to the dark opening. He looks back at the boy who is eyeing the passage with clear trepidation.

"Please, Patrick. Trust me. You know I'm not lying."

Patrick purses his lips, squeezes his eyes shut and opens them wide and then steps into the room.

The ghost of Brother Luciano is waiting for them, and Sam gives Patrick a look of reassurance as he breaks the salt circle and then invites both spirits in with him.

"Sam... I can't. With... with him here."

"Patrick, you're trusting me, remember? This is the only place we can talk safely, but we all gotta get in. He can't  _do_  anything to you except maybe give us information that can save you. All of us. Right?"

Patrick purses his lips, nods, and steps inside. Brother Luciano settles over his body. Sam closes the circle again carefully and sits down Indian style.

He keeps his voice down. "Okay. I have a partial plan."

Patrick's eyes go wide.

"I couldn't talk about it before because I was afraid of being overheard by you-know-who, but I've been hashing it out. To win, we all need to get out of this plane and end the boogeyman. Thanks to some information left to me, I'm pretty sure we can handle the first part."

"Okay, how?"

Sam shifts and gets comfortable. "Remember when I told you that you probably never could slip through the holes between this plane and the other because there wasn't a part of your body over there?"

Patrick's face sours.

"Yeah."

"Well, that's how we're gonna get you out. I'm going to take you, I mean, part of you, out of here when I leave."

"What, like... my finger or something?" He looks disgusted.

Sam shakes his head quickly, disturbed just at the thought of breaking off a piece of poor dead kid. "What? Jesus. No it doesn't have to be a finger or a toe or anything like that. Just a little of your hair will work. And if I've still got a way out, if that thread connecting me to the exit is still there and I can jump through it, then your spirit can follow me out with no problem." He pauses. "Of course, I'd want to burn your remains here. Just in case. So there's no way you could ever get dragged back."

Sam half expects that part to be at least as disturbing as collecting a piece of him, but Patrick's reaction is just the opposite.

"So, all you have to do is cut some of my actual hair and then I can get out when you do?" He asks, and now Sam sees a light of real hope burning behind his blue eyes.

"Exactly. You and everyone else I can find in time, which is why I'm going to need your help especially. Brother Luciano used blessed salt to hide himself in this circle, and we can use what's left here to kind of hide what we're doing so the boogeyman doesn't suspect."

"Sam... Sam this is... this plan is so easy. Could it really work?"

Sam purses his lips, looks down at the book and then up to the quiet image of Brother Luciano before answering the boy.

"Yeah, theoretically, it should work, but there's still the issue of the boogeyman. I gotta try to kill it, Patrick. It has a body that can be hurt, we know that, but it's not like a human being where you can just... stab it and kill it. Best bet is to burn it completely the same time we're burning your bodies. Which means the timing has to be right on, and I've got to rig a trap and probably throw the boogeyman into it since I doubt it'll walk into it on its own."

Patrick's face falls.

"Crap. You mean..."

"Yeah, another frontal assault. And every time it gets near me it burrows into my head, so we could have the perfect plan and at the last minute I might blow it."

"Sam. Wait." Patrick gets up onto his knees in agitation. "Wait, that's just... It's too dangerous. Can't we just do part of this plan and get out while we can?"

He shakes his head. "Patrick, I'm not leaving the job half done. Not now, not ever again, okay? I'm not leaving it here to come after anymore kids. I'm finishing what I started and that's just how it's going to be. But." He holds up Brother Luciano's book. "Frater was a hunter and I think there's something in this journal of his that might help us. Give us an edge."

Patrick pointedly does not look at the deathly spirit who continues to say nothing but is clearly watching them closely.

"How do you know? Did he tell you?"

Sam smiles, nods. "Yeah, actually."

"Okay, wow. And you can read it?"

Sam takes a deep breath. "Kind of. It's in Latin. But Brother Luciano wants to stop this thing as much as I do, and he can hopefully point out the parts I need to know since we're running out of time."

Patrick nods several times. "What do I do?"

"You're the only one who can help me find the bodies, and you need to figure out the fastest way in this crazy place to get to as many as I can, because when we start this, there's no slowing down and no stopping until it's over and done and we either win or we don't. It's the best bet to save Emily and Amber and ourselves, but at any point in this whole thing the boogeyman could show up."

"In other words, we gotta both be Superman."

Sam smiles in spite of the gravity of it all.

"Dude, we have to be the entire Justice League."

A slow grin spreads across Patrick's face.

"Okay. Okay Sam. Let's do this."

* * *

**1993**

**Sam - 10**

**Dean - 14**

"Come on, you little shit. Let's do this. You wanna fight? Bring it on."

_Yeah, you think I'm fucking crazy?_

It was no use trying to keep calm, trying to not make noise. Dean was pretty sure the vamp had been telling the truth-it didn't matter how far away he got now, that damn thing was going to find him no matter what.

And considering how much of the wall it was tearing up in his wake like the goddamn boulder in  _Raider's of the Last Ark_ , it wasn't going to let a little thing like a whole house get in its way. Dean couldn't stay in the wall forever.

His sense of direction was getting clouded. He didn't feel the pain in his wrist because of the adrenaline, but he could feel its weakness. He was rattled to the core, but at least he still had the machete. At least he still had his life.

And then he gained a splitting headache when he hit a low beam.

_Fuck._

Because he had to take a second to blink his eyes, shake his head.

And then he noticed the wall wasn't getting ripped up behind him. But there was movement. Out there. Dean stopped, swallowed, blinked his eyes, tried to listen.

It was clomping into the next room. Slowly. Yeah, because now it was looking for traps. And at this rate it was going to be ready for him, yank him right out of the wall.

Except the vamp didn't know one thing, and if Dean could get to it faster...

_Shit._

Dean ducked under the low beam, the indicator that he had moved into the next room, and then bolted with everything he had for his one exit.

As soon as he took off, he heard commotion in the room and then the sound of a sharp blast. Okay, so it tripped the gun trap, but that wouldn't stop it for long and he still had to...

He fell into it. His feet hit open air, and he knew that might happen because he couldn't see shit in here, but this  _was_  what he was aiming for. At the last second, as he teetered over, he reached out and found the rope. And he kind of got a hold of it, but his hand was bloody and sweaty and his wrist was no good, so he half fell through the dumbwaiter shaft down into the kitchen wall just as the plaster above him was torn open.

Rope burn. Dean added that to his growing list of injuries. His legs were shocked by the force of his descent, but they weren't broken, thank god. Nothing was broken yet. So he kicked, forced the small door open, and shimmied out like a sweat-slicked snake onto the kitchen counter and then managed to make it to the floor with a little more grace.

Raising the machete, coughing dust, he ignored pain, tried to figure out if the thing was stupid enough to come after him directly, take the stairs or, hell, figure out how to cut a hole in the ceiling out of sheer hate.

He could make out the shouting from above as it echoed down the dumbwaiter shaft:

"God _dammit_ , kid. I'm gonna get so fucking  _creative_  when I get my hands on you."

"Good luck with that, asshole!" Dean answered up the opening, because God, it would be a gift if it came down the chute right now. Preferably head first.

Dean swallowed when no body followed.

This was now officially out of control. He had a few tricks left, but they were defensive. All defensive, like the gun trap, or the salt skid-they had no chance of killing the thing, just slowing it down. Unfortunately the vamp was doing as good a job of slowing Dean down as much as he was giving it out, and Dean had no illusions that he could keep up this cat and mouse game for much longer.

For one thing, he was running on adrenaline. In reality, his body was bent, beaten, bloody and exhausted, he was just too stubborn to give it a real chance to tell him so in no uncertain terms. He needed to end this, because-and he hated to admit a monster could be right about anything-he knew Dad wasn't going to get here before someone made it back to home base with the flag.

Dean took a deep breath, looked up to the bucket hanging over kitchen door, and the almost invisible fishing line tripwire at the entrance.

He had hung this particular trap up there because it made sense, but if he set this plan into motion, it was truly the act of a desperate man. And if it managed to work, he put himself and Sam in a hell of a lot of new danger.

But the alternative, whatever that would be, was unacceptable. And this thing was pissed. Yeah, just like he hoped for.

Okay, so, desperate times. Decision made.

The thought process itself took barely five seconds. Dean let go of the machete, opened the bottom drawer next to the sink and grabbed the gun he had stashed there. Last stand in a kitchen. Not exactly as awesome a movie ending as he hoped in his happiest dreams, but kitchens were practically designed for last stands, he couldn't deny that.

"Hello there."

Dean looked up. Yeah, so it had used the stairs. Really damn quietlike apparently.

Very slowly he stood, sticking his left hand into his pocket and taking a breath while pulling back the hammer on his .45.

Threat assessment: Dean had apparently managed to cut into the vamp's neck, just not at the right angle. Blood on its right side proved that, but the cut was either gone or shallow. Yeah. Because it had gotten its fangs into Dean's wrist right afterward and blood was like a superdrug to a vamp-boosted its healing. For what it was worth, the rips in the thing's black leather jacket in the shoulder and arm meant he had connected a few times with the blade there as well. Dean could at least put "ruined the fucking vamp's jacket for good" into his win column with... yeah, pretty much nothing else.

The vampire was way, way too smug. Self assured. At least one thing was going for Dean.

"It's over." The vamp put its thumbs in its pockets.

Dean clicked off the safety, aimed for its head.

"Go ahead. Shoot me." It smirked, opened its jacket, stuck a finger through a neat hole in the chest, probably from the .45 trap it had tripped in the last room upstairs. He looked up at Dean as if to say, "and this kinda tickled a little."

"You got skills, kid. I mean, nice angle, accurate. But a gunshot doesn't do shit."

Dean licked his lips but held his ground. This was going to go one of three ways. One of those ways was Dean dying whether he tried to run or not, so, gamble on doors two and three.

"Probably hurt like a bitch, though."

"Yeah? How's that wrist doing?"

_Fucking just come through the goddamn door._

"I gotta be honest, I never bled out a kid before. Always seemed...kinda unethical, you know? Plus, not a lot in there. Just more like a snack, and not worth the screaming. But damn, if they all taste as good as you, I might have to change my palate. Starting with your little brother."

Dean's cage was rattled. He blew air out of his mouth, took a deep breath, kept his finger on the trigger.

"This is why people eat veal, right? Because the meat is so pure, so tender. Not enough years to toughen up, get too strong. Nice with some breading and some marinara? Is that how the little guy downstairs is gonna taste?"

The corner of Dean's mouth twitched. He didn't like how much the monster was enjoying this.

"Buddy, by the time I'm done with you, you won't be thinking of anything but how you wished I had killed you clean five minutes ago."

"That a fact?"

Dean smiled, tilted his head, "Or better yet, you'll wish my Dad had found you in that nest too, so you coulda died alongside your fucked up little commune of freaks."

It was the the vamp's turn to twitch.

"Dinner bell's ringing, asshole. You wanna put up or shut up 'cause you're boring me to death."

Its eyes hardened. It raised a foot.

Dean swallowed.

And then it looked down. Looked down and toed the tripwire gently, experimentally.

_Shit._

And it followed the fishing line with its eyes up the side of the door to the bucket overhead.

Nodding, it let out a breathy chuckle. "Jesus, kid. Give me a break. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

It stepped over the tripwire entirely with the kind of shit-eating grin that Dean wanted to blow off with two rounds.

"Oh boy, I don't know what I just bypassed, but from here it looks like you're pretty fucked."

Dean raised his arm, aimed above the vamp's head, and shot.

Right through the bucket.

Immediately, an amber liquid poured from the two holes right down into the punk vamp's punk hair and then into its face and onto its shoulder, and Dean wanted to laugh because the vamp's expression was almost worth everything.

"What the hell?" It dipped a finger in it, put it to its nose.

"Wesson."

Dean pulled his other hand out of his pocket.

"What?"

"Fucking vegetable oil, asshole."

"Vegetable-"

It figured it out. Somewhere in between the word vegetable and the click of a zippo opening, its eyes widened.

"You talk too much," Dean reminded it and tossed the lighter. Accurately.

He only waited long enough to see its hair catch fire. He heard a scream, and then he blasted it twice with the .45 staggering it out of the doorway long enough for Dean to push past and escape.

Dean had never tried the effectiveness of a trap like this, had no idea if he could say this was a win, not yet. Especially since the place was old and the goddamn thing might flail and he had to get to Sam and escape out of the cellar door access to the side yard before they were all crispy and then hope for a miracle.

He bolted down the hallway to the basement door. His hands were shaking, sweaty, and the handle wasn't moving-he couldn't get the door open for some damn reason. And then he realized the door had been bolted. Locked by the vamp at some point probably, to make sure they were uninterrupted. Dean was almost sick at the thought of how close it had come to Sam, down there, silent in the darkness. But he didn't have time for it.

His bloody hand slipped on the bolt. Precious time wasted. He unlocked the door, had his hand on the knob, and then heat and pain blossomed down his arm, his side, and he was thrown into the wall.

_Shit!_

Dean grabbed for purchase, looked up.

In seconds, the vamp had undergone an unpleasant transformation courtesy of thick, flammable liquid: All the hair was gone leaving a red oozing shape of a face in ground meat and two crazed eyes. The jacket had disappeared-probably what it used to put out the fire, but its hands were burned. Parts of the arm. The black t-shirt had burn holes, gunshot holes. It was still smoking. All of it was. It looked like some horrible creature straight from hell and Dean  _knew_  he was in big trouble now.

Dean raised his gun but it was there faster and swatted the gun out of his hand with a blow so hard to his injured wrist that he let out a short yelp.

"You're right about one thing."

It's voice was weird, gravelly.

"It's gotten pretty personal."

Dean slid up the wall and turned his body to duck into the living room where he went for the fireplace implements. He managed to grab the poker and swing it once before the vamp had a burning hand around his throat. It slammed him with ease into the fireplace mantle once, pain exploding in Dean's cranium.

"Oh, kid. It's so over for you now..."

Dean couldn't breathe. It felt like all the blood in his body was being squeezed up into his brain where it would pop out his eyes, explode the top of his head.

So this was it. This was the end. And all Dean could think about was that he had just failed everything. Everyone.

Sam.

_Sam. I know you can't hear me, buddy, but for what's worth, I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. I'm gonna die, and probably you too and it's my fault. Try to forgive me. Don't hate me. Don't hate me forever, Sam._

_Sammy..._

And then there was darkness.

* * *

**May 2, 2007**

**Sam - 24**

**Dean - 28**

"Sam? Sammmm!"

Sam chokes. He knows why the boogeyman is doing this, projecting Amber's screams across every room, every secret corridor. He knows it's meant to ramp up his fear, to make him desperate, but it doesn't matter that he knows because it's working. The longer it takes, the more Sam is shaking because maybe it is Amber screaming or maybe it isn't but the fact still remains that she's somewhere, maybe suffering horribly, and he had to make a decision: spend what might be his last few minutes looking for her or making and enacting a plan that would save her, him, and as many other kids as he could, from the boogeyman once and for all.

Every string of his conscience is wound as tight as it can go, ready to snap, because he wants so badly to hunt her down...

"Sam. Sam hurry. This way!"

He swallows, walks as fast as he can after Patrick's luminous fleeting form in the darkness of another secret short cut to yet another bedroom where another sad bundle of mummified remains lays on a bed. He's out of breath because he has to move fast and he knows it and this place is unforgiving of his tall frame, of his miles and miles of muscle tissue that need oxygen, to keep moving in this gravity.

Sadly, pitifully, their bodies weigh almost nothing. He has three more of them, trying not to look too closely at their small sunken faces, as he carries them back to the room in which he appeared, lays them alongside the five others already there, including Patrick's and Brother Luciano's. Quickly he pulls out his knife, cuts locks of hair from each head, and puts it into Brother Luciano's satchel which he now wears securely across his body. He prays that the dried leather holds out just a little longer to get this precious cargo across the gateway.

This plan... everything in Sam's current universe is riding on this plan. If he ever wants to set things right, if he ever wants to see Dean again, it has to work. It  _has_ to.

Sam spares a few seconds to imagine his brother in the Impala, asleep. Maybe dreaming of hot, naked co-eds and cheeseburgers. Or perhaps he's woken up, figured things out. What if he's already kicked down the door, has seen the room is empty and knows his brother is never coming back...

The thin red line shimmers and then coalesces. It's still there. It's still stretching from his heart, through the door, down the passage, and as long as it's there, Sam has a way back. He has a way to win.

"Sam?"

He takes a deep breath.

"We gotta keep moving. You said so yourself."

Patrick's holding up. Except for the first several screams, which unnerved them both, he hasn't brought up Emily or Amber. Because Sam had laid it on the line and this kid, for better or for worse, is old enough to understand the stakes. He isn't necessarily perfectly calm, but he is holding it together more admirably than Sam had on that night when he'd been given a gun and a plan and couldn't follow through with it.

Maybe the reason Sam is getting so attached to this kid is because his pre-teen boy swagger reminds him so much of his brother at that age...

Sam looks up. Nods. Says nothing out loud because someone could be listening, maybe.

Patrick hesitates slightly.

"Sam, remember... just... just remember, those," he points to the bodies on the bed. "They're... they're not us anymore, okay? Remember that."

"Yeah," he agrees quietly, but it's not easy to just turn off that switch.

Because he still has to get Amber's body.

Her scream, calling for him endlessly, punctuates the torment of the moment.

The room that Amber died in, it turns out, is one of the closest to his. Patrick chose the route because they knew the longer they went around collecting kids' bodies the more they pushed their luck with some kind of nasty interference from either the boogeyman or one of the other restless spirits, so the closest bodies had to wait until last. Sam was proud of the kid, proud of them both, for being logical, careful, not just falling on their emotions to make sure they saved the people most important to them and risking everything. But Sam would have to at least grudgingly admit to himself that if Patrick hadn't backed this plan, he wasn't sure he'd have been able to stay logical-Amber was the one he had come for in the first place.

He finds her.

Pink nightgown, her small body curled around a worn teddy bear on top of a dusty coverlet in a girl's room. Some of the ancient toys had been clearly moved and played with before she died, and it is impossible to breathe easily with tears choking his throat.

Because that poor, tired, sick little girl without any friends had become this...

Some providence in her final resting position had covered her face, but her nightgown and sandy blonde hair is still evidence enough that this is the girl he met that day so long ago in a crowded cafeteria in Osseo, Wisconsin.

Her voice calls through the air, an eerie and disturbing background for the scene before him. She's pleading with Sam, screaming for help, and he feels the tears falling. He can't afford a eulogy right now-there's no time and he has no air to spare, but he'll make sure she gets one. He'll make damn sure of it when he has killed that scary bastard. When her soul is finally at rest.

When they have won.

So he swallows hard, slides his hands gently under the brittle frame, and lifts her into his arms as if there is still a fragile breath left in this body...

"Nooooooooo!"

Amber's voice.

And the air changes abruptly.

Cold.

Apparently the boogeyman, wherever it is, with whatever wounds it's still licking, has decided it's had enough. That Sam is not breaking. It might not know the plan, but it might be desperate, as desperate as Sam...

"Sam!"

Patrick obviously knows hide and seek is over too.

This is it.

Sam takes a deep breath and runs. Runs as fast as he can with his last precious bundle. He had collected nine bodies including hers and Brother Luciano's. Tragedy or not, guilty conscience or not, there's no time to get anyone else. And this will have to be enough because if Sam is trapped here, no one is ever leaving again.

"Hurry!"

Patrick is far ahead of him, but Sam can still hear his voice. Amber's screaming has stopped and the air is getting colder.

_Tea time is over Sammy Sam. Recess is done. School is starting. The class misses you, Sammy Sam Sam. The class needs you..._

Sam is swearing a blue streak in his head because he can't get enough air and he feels like he's on Jupiter. The pinpricks of light in his vision have returned, but the door to his room is close. It's right there. Behind him, he can hear, can feel, the corridor turning cold, crackling with ice.

He hits the door and practically falls forward into the room. There's no time to be gentle as he heaps Amber's body onto the bed with the others. Their pyre. Her ponytail holder and a some of her hair are safe on the other side already.

Sam is winded. His muscles are cramping and his vision is getting spotty. He has seconds. If he's lucky.

The bed catches quickly with the pack of matches Sam has in his pocket-it's so dry. Orange flames lick at the faded clothes, the hair, Amber's teddy bear. He can't stay to make sure it all catches because there's more to do.

He turns to the door, to the long loop of string attached to the handle, string from the top he had found when he first woke up in this place.  It was originally used to spin an antique toy, but now it has been repurposed to run up and over a nail above the lintel, and it pulls the other half of his latch trap from the dresser top. The top string is soaked in the only damp Sam has in this airless, waterless wasteland of a house - his own saliva. It'll ensure it doesn't burn up when the fire gets going. The bottom of the string is tied around two bricks he had wedged out from the fireplace. The weight of the bricks on the string connected to the door turns the bedroom door into an automatic door-something that will close on its own, an essential part of the plan.

If it works.

The bodies of as many as he could physically rescue are all here, their only connection to this plane burning while the locks of hair that will give them a chance to piggyback his own escape are safely and secretly tucked away in Brother Luciano's pouch. Sam is fervently hanging onto his father's theory of ghost physics, upon which the actual success of their escape all hinges.

With a final deep breath, a clench of his fists, Sam finally scuffs the ring of blessed salt that circles the bed, hiding the mountain of bodies and his plan.

Because he needs to draw the boogeyman to him now without fail, and he has to survive the next few minutes.

Sam is gasping for breath already, feeling nauseous. He has to hang onto himself, his plan. The boogeyman is going to get into his head, he knows it, but if he can't make saving children a priority over whatever the hell the boogeyman will show him, then he deserves to die in this place. He deserves it.

And that's what he tells himself as he opens the door to face the ice and the cold and the dread and his destiny.

"Sam!"

Why Patrick is trying to stick around, Sam can't fathom.

"Patrick, go! You know what to do!"

Now Patrick's only job is to find the spirits of the other kids, hide, and then follow him out.

Sam pulls his knife, the one weapon he still has, the thing that's saved him a least once now, and then he's thrown against the wall and his arm is pounded against it over and over and over.  The cold comes bearing down on him, his hand goes numb and the knife slips from his grasp. He hears it skitter away before the avalanche descends over him. It's smothering but still somehow indescribably soft, almost gentle. He gasps, tries to push it away, but it's clinging and his chest is heavy and then some floodgate in his head opens.

There are voices.

Soft, feathery, sibilant, and they ride on a current of sound, a pairing of pure notes that sting somehow. They burrow in and Sam slowly begins to recognize this. He's heard it before maybe, a long time ago? And with the memory comes the fear.

_He doesn't want to hear this. He doesn't want to know. Sammy doesn't want to know._

Sam doesn't know where his own thoughts begin and the boogeyman's voice ends, but he's trapped in this labyrinth and he can't stay here because he has something he needs to do and it's more important than whatever this is.

_Get out of my head!_

_Once upon a time, Sammy. You know this story. You told me this story yourself. Once upon a time there were two brothers._

_Stop_

_These two brothers were special because heaven and hell said so. Heaven and hell wanted them both to die..._

_No!_

It was coming back to him now. Trapped in cold and darkness and the grotesque clownlike monster grin of teeth and happiness in murderous facets and fractions holding him out into a nothingness where the only things that existed were these voices and these  _truths_.

_I don't want to know!_

_I remember. I remember, Sammy. I remember. I remember part of the story. Little pieces your pieces. Pieces of Dean all ribbons and blood and emptiness..._

Sam presses hands to his ears, but it can't drown out the sound. The sound of howling. Of anguish and pain and slick slaps of wet bloody flesh, bones breaking, tongues being pulled and ripped, slowly, from mouths where only weak, hollow animal noises crawl out.

And under all of it, a certainty. A  _plan_. And everyone in the universe is in on it except Sam and Dean...

_Sammy. Poor Sammy. You don't want to leave here. You don't want to go back. Everyone dies there. Everyone dies there Sam Sammy. You'll be happier when you stay. Everyone will be happier. We can listen together. I've been waiting..._

And then the one corner of Sam's grown up rational self still trying to cling to any semblance of reality, of escape, starts to get it.

_Why? Why do you want to hear Heaven and Hell so badly? Why? Why go through all of this? What do you get from it?_

Laughter like broken glass shards grating together. Scraping down chalkboards. Sam reacts by trying to retreat in his mind, but the panic of it is filling up his head until it drowns out the breathy whispers and the guttural hollow whines.

 _Because, Sammy Sam... When I get Sam I_ get  _them all._

And Sam wants to understand, but he's suddenly bombarded by visions that travel at hyper speed-of broken cities and dying men and women and screams and black eyes and shadow wings and himself in gleaming white and Dean in gold armor and then everything  _everything_  being pulled back, sucked into a vortex, that ends in a yellow eye.

No. Not yellow. Silvery. Mercurial.

Like a mirror. Like the mirror he has right now.

Sam gasps. His eyes are open. His eyes are open and the boogeyman is here, swallowing his soul, and his legs are weak but he's up against the wall and this scary fucking clown with a face that is all negative space, stretching out to infinity except for eyes and teeth, is going to take away every choice Sam has left. And it's going to do it now because it has to know it only has one chance left.

Sam stops grappling with the bony white gloved hands that are around his neck. He stops struggling for air. He has one last thing. The only thing. His hand fumbles in Brother Luciano's pouch and he pulls it out with the greatest effort.

It doesn't hurt anymore, whatever the boogeyman is doing that's killing him. It doesn't hurt, and that somehow scares Sam more. Everything is going numb.

_No more, Sammy. No more guns or knives or fighting or hating or hoping or fearing or crying or running. No more. No more..._

No more-

Sam manages to grip the handle of the ancient tool, to bring it up, to slide the flat, shiny surface between his face and the boogeyman.

"Remember this?" Sam breathes as the hands suddenly release him. He staggers back against the wall, but he can't, he absolutely  _cannot_  drop this precious thing now.

The boogeyman backs up a foot but then is jolted to a standstill.

"Sarah Winchester had a house of hundreds of rooms... and only a couple of personal mirrors..."

Sam's voice is drawn tight by lack of air, but it's keeping him focused. Sensation is coming back to his body slowly. He needs it. Needs the strength, because he only has one chance at this.

"She never let the servants keep any either... and I didn't make the connection. It's because  _you_  said no mirrors, right? You told that medium... to tell her no mirrors in the house. That it would help keep the ghosts from finding her from the realm of the dead, but really, it was  _your self preservation._  Brother Luciano found that out by accident, but didn't know  _why_."

The creature is unmoving. Its hands have dropped, arms hanging limply from its side. The boogeyman's entire body begins to shutter in and out of existence, like a movie missing frames. And underneath the insanely horrible top-hatted clown guise, something else...

Something lithe and dark and ancient but  _familiar_...

So much lore, mountains of lore, about mirrors were lodged into little Sammy's head from countless trips to the library: Mirrors as gateways to other worlds, other places. To the future and past. To the divine. Mirrors could cast a reflection of unseen things back to the wielder and make a soul vulnerable to all of those things...

Like the shiny, mirrored eyes of a boogeyman...

"I get it now. Planes walking... is easy for you... too easy... like it's a  _part_  of you. But turn two mirrors to face each other and the corridor of reflection is infinite, the planes it pulls you to are infinite... kinda... not fun times for you... is my guess."

Sam pushes himself up against the wall. Takes deep breaths. This is the point at which Brother Luciano had failed-he was old, weak to begin with, and he didn't have the strength to physically finish it. And the boogeyman will still be every bit as strong and creepy and willing to get into Sam's head as soon as it can navigate itself out of the infinite plane loop Sam momentarily banished it to with the mirror. Sam is bruised, fighting for breath, for sensation, for footing.

But Sam has kids to save, and an old man who had inadvertently given the boogeyman almost everything it wanted. And himself. He has to save himself because if he doesn't, then Dean was right about too many things. And so was Dad.

And the heat at his side from his temporary room, so near, is blazing through the chill.

He stuffs the mirror back into the pouch and reaches out both hands. He grabs the shifting mass of his nemesis, and a second after its stunned connection with Luciano's mirror is severed, Sam throws it at the door to his room with absolutely everything he has. The air rushes from his lungs in a harsh roar he doesn't even recognize as his own.

The monster hits the door and is propelled through it into the inferno. And, thank God, the top string can still work his primitive trap. The bricks counterweight with force, the string pulls the door closed behind the boogeyman and Sam hears it latch.

And then.

The noise.

As if all of the demons of hell and every monster Sam has ever faced are behind that door, in the fire, and the howls are almost too much for Sam's sanity.

He doubles over. It hurts to move, to breathe. Getting to his feet feels impossible. His vision is cloudy, and that's the sense that's actually working the best at the moment. His fingers scrabble at the wall, trying to find purchase to get up, but it's so hard. Too hard!

* * *

**Back in the real world**

**Now**

_A hail storm._

_Rickety click-clacking against a windowsill and Dean had never seen golf ball sized hail before, but here it is. Crazy thing. It's May and a million ice chunks are bouncing off the asphalt in front of the motel like they're actually made of rubber._

" _Holy crap, Sam. You gotta see this."_

_Dean turns around but Sam isn't there._

_Sam's gone. Sam's left him._

_Another harsh clack of hail hits the window and Dean jumps..._

Dean jumps.

He's not in a motel, he's not 12-years-old-he's in the Impala and he is half slid in his seat and, Jesus, is that drool at the corner of his mouth? And then it all starts to come back to him.

Sam. Sam fucking  _drugged_  him. That little sonofabitch.  _When I get my hands on that kid I'm gonna..._

_Clack!_

Dean startles at the concussion against the driver's side window. Light from a streetlamp somewhere gives him enough to see a woman, blond, scooping up a handful of gravel.

Oh  _hell_  no.

Dean opens the door, ready to punch some psycho bitch who throws rocks at an American classic, goddammit.

"Hey, hey lady! What the hell's your problem?"

The woman stands up straight, tilts her head at him incredulously and scoffs. " _My_  problem? I'm not the amateur who's asleep on the goddamn job,  _big brother_. Take a good look around, genius."

Dean's confused. Who the hell is this bitch and...

And then he does look. The Impala is the main event in a supernatural convention: it's situated in the middle of a ring of salt with weird beads and talismans hanging from the rear view mirror, the windshield wipers, laying on the hood.

"What the hell?"

"Why else do you think I'm ten feet away? It's practically ground zero."

Dean looks up at her again, this time really searching her face.

"Need a hint?" She supplies, "How about red Escort? Harrisburg? Gallons and gallons of holy water?"

The bitch's eyes go black.

"You!"

"Different meat suit, but yeah, me. Let's not shoot the messenger just yet, hot shot. You've got bigger problems. And you better do something, like, now."

She points behind Dean to the motel.

He's loathe to take his eyes off the hell bitch but...

And then he sees. And he understands.

"Oh, Jesus.  _Sam!"_

_Sam!_

* * *

Sam's heart pounds. He opens his mouth and takes a deep breath. The tug against his chest is hard, unrelentingly taut, and he has no choice but to stand up to get some slack. But there's no slack. None.

The red thread is a scarlet red rope now. In spite of his fatigue, Sam stumbles forward because he doesn't have a choice. And thank God, because he needs this right now. This reminder that he's not done until he's out, until he's safe and everyone is safe and Dean can marathon punch him for this as long as he's  _out of here._

The screams behind him have become something completely unearthly, without a suitable human description, and every hair on Sam's body is standing straight up. But he's moving away from the room, from the heat, and towards the end.

A corridor to a staircase going up to a staircase going down. A corner and a corner and a corner and a closet that leads to another room and yet another set of stairs that now go up up up. And Sam's lost count of the rooms. He can barely see anything now, can scarcely breathe, but the tug in his chest is his compass and it points to Dean and the way out. It's giving his legs reason to move even if he feels like he's going to have a heart attack. Even if he's no longer able to form a rational thought. Pure instinct and this guide is all he has and all he needs.

He hits a barrier. A solid barrier. But he can't let this stop him because the red rope is pulling on him and it will pull his heart right out if he doesn't do something. So he pushes. He kicks, mindlessly, and then the barrier somehow gives way.

He falls through a pair of double doors, cheek to floor. The end is close. The wood at his nose smells like petroleum. He thinks he knows something about petroleum. That back in the day, people used to polish wood with petroleum oil...

Sam starts to giggle. To laugh. Because what the hell were those people thinking? Petroleum is so flammable. So flammable.

"Sam!"

It's not just one voice. It's a chorus. It's almost pretty because there are so many and they are small and not vicious or cold at all. They've followed him in.

He lifts his head. So hard to see, but it looks like a roomful of children now in something like an old observatory maybe? There's a big French window opening onto space, bleeding red into him, a life-giving artery.

And he gets it.

All these kids... these kids...

He gets to his feet. Arms around his legs. Amber...

He thinks he hears her say "I'm okay, he was tricking you" but it's swimming in a haze. All he knows is that before he passes out, he has to leap into that outer space.

Sam reaches out a hand, touches the coldness of eternity, and falls...

* * *

**1993**

**Sam - 10**

**Dean - 14**

Dean fell out of darkness and into a world that was comprised almost entirely of pain. Something was shaking his head by his hair and then his face was cold and wet and he gurgled on a shallow breath.

Coughing he opened his eyes.

And caught a fist to the face. Stars exploded, but he didn't black out.

_Goddammit._

He was alive. Okay, he was alive, but he was in a chair and he couldn't move. His wrists were bound behind him, his ankles tight to the legs of the chair.

"Wake up, kid." The vamp tossed the empty glass of water into the cold fireplace next to him with a clash.

"Jesus... Christ... do we... have to have a conversation? Don't you ever... shut the fuck u-"

Another crack and Dean felt his lip split open.

"Damn, kid. You don't know when to quit."

Dean blinked up through one swollen lid. The vamp looked less like a reject from a low budget horror film now, but it still had no hair and its face still looked partially melted.

"Don't worry. You didn't miss anything good. Maybe five minutes. This would be pretty crappy repayment for such an adventurous night if you weren't awake for it, right?"

Dean wanted to feel bravado. Wanted to do the "laugh in the face of death" thing, but laughing in the face of death was a lot easier in theory, especially if he already didn't feel like complete shit.

"Whaddayou want?" He started, his words sounding funny with a quickly swelling lip. "I mean, you've fucking won already. Yay. You smacked down a 14-year-old kid. Throw... throw a friggin' party."

The vamp nods. "Oh, I will. I will." Dean could see that it was twirling the fireplace poker idly. "It's a special party."

Without any hesitation, it raised the poker like a baseball bat and swung it into Dean's right arm. The bone broke with a sickening crack, but Dean didn't hear it over the sound of his own scream.

_Sonofabitch!_

But he could no more successfully stop the sound of agony at that second than he could fly to the moon. And the tears were just going to come on top of everything else to add insult to injury.

Dean had to keep himself from hyperventilating through the anguish, but it wasn't easy and it didn't happen fast enough, and his body was just a fucking traitor all over.

"Sonofabitch."

Even that sounded far too small, too resigned.

"Aw. Is that all? Damn." The vamp's fake disappointment was like another slap in the face. "You know, all I can hear is the sound of your heart beating like a rabbit. All I can smell is your blood and how fucking scared you are right now. That's all. We're in a little world, just the two of us."

Dean felt his stomach turn. "Dude... you... you have serious issues."

"Yeah. My issues were with your dad. Like, once upon a time. And then I met the 'boy wonder' here, and, you know what? You have a point. He's probably not a guy I wanna tangle with if the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. At least, not on an empty stomach."

Dean's right arm was silently screaming, but he still had a stupid left arm, and he felt around the knot. If he had 60 seconds, maybe, he could get free, especially since his right wrist was a slippery bloody mess.

The vamp swung the poker right into his stomach.

Dean clenched up, but it was too late. He retched up some bile at the same time he lost all the air in his lungs.

"Hey, I'm complimenting you here. No polite little 'thank you?'"

Dean was officially over this fucking chatty-ass sadist.

"Get... bent," he gasped out, but only after several seconds.

So so so not cool to vomit on himself. And that thought was depressing. Because he had a feeling he was going to die young, but he always envisioned it would be something more dramatic, more heroic. Like the movies and TV shows that had babysat him most of his life, he hung onto the idea that he could go down in a blaze of glory.

Not broken, bloody, and covered in his own stomach juices. Or screaming like a baby. At least he could control one thing-there'd be no begging for his life. If he was going to die here-high likelihood- it wasn't going to be with him kowtowing to this B movie reject. And it didn't matter that no one was going to know the kind of end he made as long as  _he_  knew.

Of course, that was all depending on one important thing: He could  _not_  let himself be turned. Under any circumstances.

Dean looked up and tried for an expression that was defiant and badass, though with his eye and lip swollen and bloody, it probably wasn't having the best effect.

The vamp hunkered down to eye level.

"You know, at one point I thought we might be able to get along. But looks like you drank the hunter kool aid and it's all just black and white, isn't it?"

_Seriously?_

"I'm not... having this conversation with a blood-sucking parasite."

"See what I mean? It's exactly that attitude that's gonna be the death of you." The vamp used the unpleasant end of the poker to jab Dean in the chest, hard.

"I'd rather die than be a  _murderer_."

Snorting, the vamp got closer. "Man, I've heard plenty about hunters. All fucking whack jobs who do some pretty shady shit. When was the last time you went to Sunday school, kid? Don't preach morality to me. You live to grow up, you'll be just the same, trust me."

"Awesome... Is this the part where you kill me then?"

Dean wanted to upchuck at the condescending pat to the face.

"You know, even after being shot and burned alive, I'd still be inclined to extend the 'eternal life' offer. After I, you know, beat and break the shit out of you, but I still do have Dear Ol' Dad to deal with and you've gone and used up the juice I pumped up on a few hours ago. So. Here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna drain you dead, and then I'm gonna go down into the basement and drain the squirt down there, and  _then_ I'm gonna hulk out."

Dean twisted his arms harder, worked faster.

"Plenty of mojo to deal with your old man fast. It sucks that dad and I won't get to have a meaningful chat like this one, but I get that it's probably for the best. And, anyway, I'll have used his kids' blood to take him out, and that's got to count for some kind of low blow, right?"

"Go to hell," Dean gritted. Because he was fine with dying, but not Sam. Not Sammy.

"If it's any consolation, this is gonna be a new low for me. Killing kids like this. But you know who you can blame in the afterlife."

Dean's chest heaved. Now he was in full fight or flight mode. This was literally it.

"Fuck you," he spat.

"Kinda expected those would be your last words..."

And Dean watched the vamp's mouth open, a set of ridiculous teeth descend, and then it was on him.

His neck exploded with fiery pain and he cried out in spite of himself. The worst part was the fact that his heart clamored to the monster, felt like it was beating just for this fucking thing's edification. His entire being was being drawn into a tight ball at the center just so it could ebb away inside the bastard's mouth and some effect of the process was trying to force his brain to accept that he  _wanted_  this.

And then his hands were free. A second or two in, both his fists went to work. He pummeled the monster right under the ribs, completely ignoring the screaming pain in his broken arm, his messed up wrist, his neck. It helped to stop whatever disgusting effect the bleeding out was having on his brain-it reminded him that he had to keep fighting until the end. It didn't matter if he was doing damage to himself. It no longer mattered that going down with a fight was futile now, either. All the vamp had to do was say that Sam was next, and that was all. Useless or not, Dean had to beat against that fate. He had to rail against it because he couldn't punch God square in the face, and God deserved it if there  _was_  a God. For taking his mom. For turning his Dad into an obsessed alcoholic. For making an innocent kid, who watched  _Nova_  because he liked to learn about the world outside of the supernatural, die at the hands of a fucking vampire. At making him so impotent he couldn't  _stop_  it.

"Dean."

Dean thought he was hearing things as he weakened. That his brain had summoned up Sammy's voice as either a comfort or a curse in his last seconds...

But then the monster was off his neck. Gasping. Eyes wide. Looking one million kinds of surprised.

Dean instinctively pushed it off him because he wasn't going to look a gift horse...

And then there was a thunk. A sickening crunch, and the vamp's head was just gone. It spurted a brief geyser of blood all over him, and then it quietly toppled over. Just like that.

Stunned, jaw open, Dean looked up.

The impossible image of Sam was in front of him, machete in two hands, covered in blood, staring down at the monster corpse with the coldest eyes Dean had ever seen.

It was a full five seconds of silence. Stillness. The vision wouldn't go away, searing itself into Dean's brain for eternity.

He felt sick and it took him five seconds to understand why.

Because Sam was covered in blood, holding a machete, like it was the most natural thing in the world. And the expression in his green eyes was not the eyes of his kid brother.

"Sam?"

Silence.

"Sammy?"

Sam looked up at Dean.

And then he blinked.

A world of transformation happened in that one tiny action. All of the sudden Sam looked tiny and completely wrong in this whole scenario. His small hand opened and he started to actually see what his hand had done, was covered in blood. His eyes traveled so slowly to the corpse on the floor.

Dean couldn't handle it.

"Shit. Sam, gimmee the machete," Dean tried to keep his voice calm and level. He reached out and Sam handed it to him obediently as if he was dreaming.

Dean had his ankles free in two seconds and then he was stumbling, trying to find whatever reserves of energy he had, because Sam was here and had somehow just saved their lives but this wasn't a good scene. This was a bad bad scene,  _Jesus Christ_ , and Dean half picked Sam up with one arm and somehow managed to stay on his feet to the bathroom.

Sam wasn't catatonic, but he was quiet, his eyes looked around as Dean put him in the tub. Grabbed a towel. Felt like throwing up. All the while he called Sam's name softly, gently. It wasn't until Dean turned the shower on and the spray of water hit his brother that Sam seemed to come fully out of this weird trancelike state.

He gasped, shivered, and blinked several times.

"Dean?"

"Hey! Hey buddy. Hey... you in there?" Dean was crying now as he wiped blood from Sam's face.

And though he shivered, Sam was a good kid and wasn't complaining about the water, of being fussed over.

"Y-yeah. God. Dean are you okay? Holy crap!"

Dean had no idea what he looked like, but judging from Sam's worried face, probably not so good.

But he laughed. He laughed through his tears because this was Sam. This was his brother, and he was free. They were both finally free.

* * *

**Now**

It's dark. And confining. Something above him is keeping him from standing, but the world is rushing back into his lungs and Sam gasps it in like a drowning man only to cough on the dust. He tries to get up again and winces as something sharp digs into his skull.

Because he's under the bed.

_He's under the bed!_

A wooden frame and broken springs and... and  _air thank God!_ He reaches his hands forward, pushes with his legs, and his senses are coming back online. He hurts everywhere, his chest aches but he's clawing himself out and this old, musty carpet feels and smells  _so good_  to him.

It seems like forever before the ancient room births him anew. The bed. The candles. Everything is exactly the way it was hours ago. Minutes ago? He has lost all concept of time because in his head all he can think of is  _it's over... it's really... it's really over!_

It's an effort because he's tired-so tired. And he aches in muscles he didn't think could ache, but he's upright and that's something.

Reverently he picks up Amber's ladybug hair holder and the pencil box. This pencil box that saved him,  _thank you, Dean._  Sam's shaking. He can feel his face hot, wet, as he puts those precious things into the bag that has miraculously made the journey with him.

He carried a part of their physical remains over. The rest of them is gone, up in flames in that crazy house. If everything Dad said was right, then Brother Luciano's pouch now contains enough of an anchor to their spirits that it's their ticket out of the boogeyman's world back into their own. Theoretically, they'd finally get a chance to go where they were supposed to go, wherever it was. To be at peace. That was an important part of the plan and, for once, a plan actually  _worked_.

A gentle whitish light begins to replace the dim candle.

One by one Sam sees faces. Small faces. Most he doesn't recognize, but a few he does: Emily, Patrick, Amber.

"It worked," Patrick's voice is soft. He's harder to see here now. On this plane, he's mostly a watery reflection of the boy who once called him stupid.

Amber's fingers close over Sam's hand.

"Happy birthday, Sam. This is the best birthday ever..."

Sam's going to break down. Literally, he just wants to fall over onto the bed and cry as unmanly as it is because he feels as if the lead weights around his conscience have fallen away. He's done it. Maybe broken the chains that have been shackling him for years, opened another path.

"Guys..." Sam's shaking his head, not sure what to say.

There's no warning.

Heat and chaos and sudden light and then an inferno with arms is in the room. Sam is borne to the ground feet away and it's so  _hot!_

_Mine!_

Sam's not even remotely prepared. The boogeyman, if that's what this is, burning and black and shimmering, is dropping chunks of ash as it stands over him.

_The First shall taste too... the First of the children shall have his day..._

Sam scoots backwards out of sheer terror. Whatever the boogeyman was, it's somehow far scarier now. Even the voice in his head, once soft and taunting, has become something worse than demonic. From its flaming body tendrils have begun to catch the carpet, the bed, the room.

_How do I kill this thing!_

Sam reaches around blindly as it comes closer. He's on his back, on the floor in front of the closet. He gasps as its face, burning pitch, is inches from his own.

_Sammy Sam... if the First cannot have you, then you will see oblivion... it is beautiful and empty and all alone. All alone..._

Only the silvery shiny eyes are familiar. Not even a child's nightmare's could devise the true shape of the creature above him now. It's so horrible that Sam has to look away. It's not even a choice. This thing  _can't_ exist. And then a burning hand curls into a fist. It feels like every nerve in Sam's body is being collapsed, drawn together into a tight bright ball. He tries to breathe, to fight against the sensation of his soul being ripped from his body, but it's impossible. Despite the blazing inferno, his vision begins to go dark.

He's vaguely aware of children calling his name. Screaming for him.

"Sam! Fight him! You have to!"

That's Amber.

But how... how? How to kill it? HOW?

Sam's last gambit. His arm strikes out. If he could get to the mirror, maybe...

But then his hand closes on something different. Wood and metal and familiar: The shotgun he had dropped once upon a time when the boogeyman had dragged him under the bed. There was exactly one round left.

And now, as he starts to feel unbearably light, uncomfortably small, he hears a voice from his past.

" _Face it down first. Aim for the eyes. Don't look away."_

_Dad. You knew...!_

Sam blinks. It hurts. Any second he's going to lose all sensation.

"Look at me, you fucking monster!"

And suddenly he can see it. He can see everything in a way he shouldn't be able to see-light in darkness, sounds, voices, heaven and hell and...

And those two shiny eyes that are going to eat his soul.

He pulls the trigger.

In slow motion, the mirrored orbs shatter into a million pieces. The blackness shrouded in flames falls back onto the bed and disintegrates with the heavy smoke. Sam goes from feeling unbearably light to unbearably heavy. Despite the calls of the children to get up, he can't. He just can't and that's all he knows.

* * *

Dean kicks down the door. Goddammit. He throws an arm up across his mouth because 10 seconds ago Osseo was quiet and now there's so much smoke he can barely see a foot in front of him.

"Sam? Sammy!"

The bed is completely engulfed. He can see enough to know that the bright orange blaze and its heat are going to make things tricky. The carpet has caught in several place and flames are racing up the walls.

"Sam!" It's punctuated by coughs.  _Please, God, let Sam not be on that goddamn bed. Please God, let me not be too late!_

And then he hears the most unbelievable sound: A little girl's voice.

"Over here!"

And as he pushes through the wall of smoke he see his little brother, shotgun in hand, unconscious on the floor.  _Just unconscious_  he tells himself. And when he shouts Sam's name again, grabs him by the shoulders and starts to haul him up, Sam does start to kind of move, even if it's just barely.

"Dean."

So quiet, but he can hear it.

"Cover your mouth, goddammit, and help me!" He's straining to keep his footing and half drag Sam at the same time, but then Sam starts following directions,  _thank you, God_  and they're moving. Slowly. Too slowly. But they hit the door and they're both still alive and no one is on fire.

"Jesus, Sam. What the hell is it with you and burning buildings?" He helps Sam over the hood of the Impala where he's coughing enough to bring up one and half lungs, but he's gesturing, trying to talk, making a push back motion with his hand.

"What? What! Jesus, take a breath!" He grabs Sam's shirt front and pulls him up.

Sam gasps out. "Gotta... get back. Molotov..."

" _What_?"

But the word "molotov" and a burning building behind him are enough. He pulls Sam again and they both haul ass just as an explosion behind them shatters the roof of the building sending fiery debris down on the car and the parking lot. Dean flips up the back of his coat and then yanks it off, beating a flaming piece of roofing off Sam's back at the same time.

The kid has the decency to start breathing normally. Dean looks into his brother's eyes, sees Sam there, really there, and grabs his shoulder, hard. Grounding them both.

As one, they both turn to watch this piece of their history go up in smoke.

"Dean."

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

Dean scoffs. This is so much beyond a sorry.

"You aren't yet, but you will be. Did you at least kill it?"

Sam smiles. It's a pained smile. Weak, but there. And now Dean can finally breathe.

"Yeah. It's dead."

"Of course it is. Yeah. Of course it's dead. How do you feel?"

"Honestly?"

"Yeah."

"I feel like I'm gonna pass out in two."

Dean opens his mouth to say something sarcastic when his eyes are drawn back to the motel front. Figures are emerging. Children?

No, ghosts of children.

"Sam?" It's Dean's warning voice.

"It's okay, Dean. It's okay."

And Dean can guess from Sam's dewy eyes that these must be the kids the boogeyman stole. And somehow they're back.

That little girl... she's definitely familiar.

"Sam. These men and ladies in suits said we can go. They said we can go with them now." She's smiling. The girl from Sam's closet, the haunter. She's actually a cute kid as kids go. Far less creepy now, maybe.

_Suits? Maybe Reapers?_

Sam's nodding. He's full on crying, and Dean's not going to say anything just because.

"Yeah. It's okay. It's okay to go with them. If you're ready."

She nods. They all nod.

"Hey, Sam."

This is from a blond-haired boy.

"Hey, Patrick."

"I take it back. You're not stupid. Not even for a grownup. So, thanks."

"Couldn't have done it without you, man," Sam's trying to laugh through his tears. "You're pretty much the hero here."

The kid looks sheepish. "Well, it's nice to be able to be one before I go. I get it. I get why you do this stuff."

The girl in the pink nightgown raises her hand. "Bye, Sam. We love you, okay? You're the best!"

Sam holds up a hand, and then the small faces turn into stars of light and vanish. Dean swallows a mixture of pride and jealousy. Because he missed the whole damn thing and these kids... But, yeah, you don't see something like that everyday.

Sam suddenly doubles over.

"Whoa whoa whoa," Dean grabs him, but it's just Sam bawling now. Like, full on messy-faced tears and gasps for air. "Come on, Sam. Jesus."

"Dean. S..sorry, I just..."

"Yeah, yeah. Okay. Christ. It's okay, man. I get it. Happily ever afters never come along in this job. Just... come on man, have some pride. Somebody might drive by."

Dean looks at the empty road and does realize he's standing in front of a legit burning building. The chances of the cops arriving first are pretty high, and he and Sam should be long gone by then.

"Okay, let's get out of here. And do me a favor, cry your face into your hoodie. Don't want your man-tears all over my upholstery. And pray that little explosion didn't mess up Baby's paint job."

* * *

From beyond the halo of the streetlamp, in the shadows, the blond demon uncrosses her arms and turns around with a smile.

She knew he'd make it back. There wasn't a doubt, at least in her mind, that Sam Winchester would be escaping this one. Just something about the kid.

The two demon bozos behind her aren't nearly as amused.

"That was too close."

She scowls. "Please, you would've run out there all fire and brimstone and then Dean Winchester would've been wasting his time trying to deal with you. Never send an asshole to do a lady's work."

The other demon scoffs and calls her a "whore" under his breath. And then louder. "I can't believe someone let you out so fast, Ruby. But, whatever. Monumental suck-ups don't live forever."

Ruby grins and slips a hand inside her leather jacket.

Seconds later she wipes the blood off her blade and steps over their useless corpses.

"Sorry boys, didn't you get the memo? You were just extras. The real show is just starting..."

She smiles and disappears into the night.

(to be concluded...)


	20. "Ramble On"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now, the grand finale

 

[ ](http://s120.photobucket.com/user/Caladria1975/media/boogeyman2.jpg.html)

 

**Chapter 20 - Finale: Ramble On**

**1993**

**Sam - 10**

**Dean - 14**

Dean's feet sank into the hot sand.

Interesting how something as simple as water could change the characteristics of sand so thoroughly. Down where the ocean swept in and out, the sand was almost hard, cool, with a kind of slimy quality. A few feet above the surf it was thick and heavy and gritty and hot, sometimes sucking his feet up to his ankles if he ran.

It was glorious.

The cast on his right arm was heavy, but even that wasn't an impediment to the bliss as he kicked up some sand, turned, and sat down heavily next to his little brother who was busy poring over a book. Dean tossed a couple new, interesting looking shells onto the page he was perusing and shoved Sam lightly.

"Hey, nerd. Incoming."

Sam shoved Dean back, but he picked one up. It was rough, white, like baked clay on the outside, but the inside was shiny and pink and smooth with a touch of twilight purple.

"Slow down. I haven't caught up with the last three you brought me," Sam complained. "But this one is kind of cool."

"Right?" Dean grinned, looked behind them 15 feet away where Dad was sitting in a camp chair, looking totally out of place on a public beach, writing in his journal. And then he said conspiratorially, "hey, check it out." He nudged his cast at Sam, showing off his latest acquisitions.

Sam had the polite decency to actually look and read.

"'To Ozzy. Hope this cute arm heals quick –Stacy.'" The look Sam gave him was withering, but it wasn't all condescending. "Really? Ozzy?"

"Sammy, I'm telling you, this is the most brilliant way to meet girls, like ever."

"You're impossible."

Sam went back to his shells and his book, but his mouth turned up at one corner.

"I'm a genius," Dean insisted and Sam didn't deny it for a change.

"What story are you giving all these girls about how you broke it in the first place?" Sam asked, his eyes going from his book to the cast.

"Whatever I feel like. I rescued someone's cat from a burning building. Was in a drag race with James Dean, whatever." Because even though "I beat back a vampire to save me and my brother" was pretty badass, it wasn't ever going to get a hottie on a beach to sign his cast. And if it got back to Dad, there'd be hell to pay no matter how magnanimous the man had been for the last week and a half.

It had been a long week and a half since that night.

Dean didn't remember much after Sammy came back to full consciousness in the shower. With the clear and present danger over and Sam back ( _Back_!) The adrenaline keeping Dean vertical ran out, and he collapsed. He remembered going in and out of consciousness for awhile, Sam in different states of distress over him, his body in multiple stages of Sam doing some crazy first aid to stop his bleeding, splint his arm, keep him from going into shock because Sam was a good kid. And every time he could get a word out, he'd say "S'okay, Sammy. Looks worse than it is," which he didn't realize was a total lie at the time, so he couldn't be held accountable. And Sam would say some stuff that Dean couldn't make out half the time but sometimes sounded like, "Dean, stay with me. Can you hear me?" over and over.

And his whole body felt really light. Sam kept trying to make him drink salt water.  _Because I probably lost a lot of blood. Good call, but gross._  It made Dean dream of the beach. Sun and sand. When was the last time he was at a beach? It was before Mom died, he thought. That bright sun on Mom's golden hair…

After that, Dean had a vague memory of Dad in the bathroom door standing over them both, Dean's head in Sammy's lap and the kid saying, "Dean's dying, Dad!" and thinking Sam needed to stop being so goddamn melodramatic and that Dad wasn't going to appreciate how Dean had fucked everything up and put Sam in the worst danger of his life to date.

And then there was the hospital.

He fought the white-garbed, masked people. Fought hard, until he heard his father telling him to stand down, to let them work. Sam's hand grabbed his. He knew it was Sam's because it was a strong grip but it was small. And then he was okay. He stopped fighting.

And then a fog came in and swept him away. The rest was a collection of soft beeping sounds, murmurs of voices, hands on his forehead, his arms, his hands, dim light and bright light and laying on a cloud of painlessness.

It was two days before he was actually conscious, and could he see his brother and father first? No. He had to talk to some "nice people" who just wanted to "ask him some questions" and Dean had to fight through the pain meds a little to keep his head fully connected because he'd been through these situations before and he knew exactly what they were trying to figure out.

So he told them about the psychopath intruder that broke in, attacked him and his brother, and he kept it simple, and of course that would be the same story Sam told in isolation. Same story Dad told. Because this had happened before and they always had a plan in backup. It was still nerve-wracking though, because he never knew if this particular shrink was going to be sharper than the last one, and Dean felt like he hadn't seen his family in a year.

But eventually, after the "nice people" all cleared out, Sammy and Dad were let in. And Sam looked good. Looked great. Was moving and talking and being Sam-hugged Dean where it wouldn't hurt, smiled, ribbed him for being a hero, all the things Dean expected.

Except.

Except there was something just a little different. Something more reserved. Sam's eyes were his, but there was a subtle change in the way he listened, the way he watched, and Dean couldn't get the picture out of his head of Sam standing in front of him, covered in blood, looking at his hands...

And Dean fully expected that he was going to get a lecture from his father. He didn't ask about the vamp or the farmhouse or anything because Dad would have dealt with all of that, but he thought there was going to be a teachable moment in all this at the very least. Later, when Dean was healed up, he'd get maybe some stronger motivation to do better.

But Dad said nothing about any of it. He took Dean's left hand in his,  _smiled_ at him, told him he "did good." Dean even tried to protest, that he failed, that if it hadn't been for Sam they'd both be dead, but John just squeezed his hand, looked at Sam and said, "you boys make a pretty damn good team when you back each other up. Just remember that."

Dean was in the hospital for three more days, and even though Sam brought him comic books, he was dying of boredom. On the last day, when the doctors put on the permanent cast, Dad asked them where they wanted to go.

Dean didn't even understand the question because he'd never been asked it before.

But Dean remembered Sam cradling his head saying, "Goddammit, Dean, I  _know_  it tastes like shit but drink the salt water. Your blood pressure is bottoming out. Please. Just drink it or you'll  _die_." And he had been kinda shouting and crying...

And Dean knew he was going to hell for thinking that it was one of the happiest memories he had, Sam so  _worried_  about him. And now it was tied with another happy memory of the way Mom's hair had looked in the sun, with the salt in the air...

So, it was the beach. And Dean knew that Sam had  _seen_  beaches before, like, in passing, along the side of the road. He'd seen every ocean in America ten times, but had never been  _on_  the beach. Dean's conception of the beach had changed after he saw his first "Spring Break Special" on Mtv, and he was totally on board with checking out the scenery even if he couldn't swim with the cast on.

Which was how they had gotten to this kind of out-of-the-way beach with not too many people but plenty of sun and sand. Sam didn't even complain about needing to go back to school, but he did get one trip to the bookstore and one book to take to the beach and Dean had to pinch himself 20 times that this was all happening, that Dad was letting this happen, right up until his toes hit the sand.

So now he sat next to his little brother who was busy looking up aquatic life like nothing had ever happened.

Except it had.

And that feeling Dean had gotten from Sam in the hospital wasn't going away.

Dean looked back at Dad and then said quietly, "Hey, Sam. I gotta ask you a question."

"Shoot."

"What...what do you remember?"

Sam stopped reading. He looked up and their eyes met briefly, but then he went back into the page and said, "I went over this with Dad. I don't remember anything."

"Nothing?"

Sam bit his bottom lip, and Dean felt like an asshole but he had to know.  _Had_  to know, because things were different and Dean could guess at a million reasons why, but he wanted to hear the truth from Sam.

"I remember Osseo. I remember all that. I remember..."

Sam was suffering, and Dean was a jerk but he didn't try to cut the kid a break-He had to hear it through, and this was as good a time as they'd ever get.

"I remember about Amber. And then...I don't know. It felt like I was asleep for a long time. The next thing I really know for sure was standing in the tub and you..."

Sam looked up at him finally.

"Jesus, Dean. You know you almost  _died_."

"Yeah, I think you kept telling me that."

"I mean, you were covered in blood  _all over_."

_That wasn't all mine, Sammy._

"Like, horror movie covered in blood or-"

"I'm  _serious_  Dean," and Sam gripped the book he was holding so hard that his fingers turned white.

"Sam, I'm fine now. I'm good. You did that, you know. Saved us. Pulled my ass right out of the fire. Take it easy." Dean put his hand on Sam's shoulder, squeezed it.

"I don't remember the vamp. Just the blood," Sam said quietly. "Dad said I was catatonic for two weeks. He told me everything."

_Thanks, Dad. Don't sugar coat it._

Sam continued. "But I don't remember it. I don't remember Missouri or the...the boogeyman. Nothing. Just. Sometimes I thought I was dreaming about us."

"Us?"

"Yeah. Me and you."

"What kinda dream?"

Sam shook his head. "I don't know. Bad, I think."

Dean shoved Sam again lightly before his brother's brain went too far down into the rocky places. Because Dean wanted to know, but he didn't want to risk Sam ever going away in his head again. Ever.

"Okay. I'm shutting up now. Whatever, Sam. It's fine. It's over."

"It's not fine," Sam's voice was low, aching.

"What?"

"I said, it's not fine. It's not fine because Amber's dead. Because you almost died and where the hell was I? Sitting in a  _basement_?"

Sam slammed the book closed.

"It's not fine, Dean. I get it, okay? I get it. Monsters are out there. Monsters want to kill us, kill people. Hurt us. And I tried to make it all go away, or...something, I don't know what was happening, but I'm not gonna let it happen again. So, the whole ugly world wins and I'm on board. The boogeyman won and now it's time to wake up and do something about it. I get it. I can still hate it, but I get it."

Dean didn't know where this was going, but the look in Sam's eyes was cold. Almost as cold as the moment he chopped off a vampire's head with strength he shouldn't have had. Hard, the way a hunter's eyes were hard.

And then Dean got it.

Sam  _had_  changed. He was becoming like Dad...

"Sam..."

Dean didn't know what to do, what to say, because he only wanted to somehow go back in time to when Sam was an overachieving little five-year-old who read to him out of short chapter books about kids who lived on a boxcar.

"Dean, when you get the cast off, I want you to teach me how to fight."

"What? You mean, instead of homework?"

"I'm not kidding," Sam said, and Dean knew he wasn't.

"Everything you know, I wanna know. I have to be ready."

"Sam..."

"Dean, I  _have_  to."

Emotions were waging a civil war in Dean's head-Sam wanting him to teach him was, like, the most awesome thing Sam had ever said...but the reasons why...

"Sam, I told you. That boogeyman thing was my fault, not yours. Okay? Blame that on me."

Sam shook his head. "No, Dean, no. I  _wanted_ you to take over. I let you take over. I can't be like that anymore. I've gotta be ready to do what I have to do when I have to do it, and not just as an accident. Because I'm scared, and we're never safe, and I can't lose you or anyone else anymore."

Sam took a deep breath, and there was nothing Dean could say to that. His little brother, the Sam he knew, was gone. Had given up. Had become part of the family business, but the distance between him and Dean and Dad had never felt greater.

Hurray for progress.

Except Dean felt sick to his stomach because Sam was right.

"Okay, Sam. If you want, but I'm not gonna go easy on you."

He summoned up a wicked grin, but inside he felt like crying.

* * *

**May 3, 2007**

**Sam - 24**

**Dean - 28**

"Seriously, Dean. You don't have to go easy on me."

Sam's hands were in his pockets. There was just enough of a chill in the night in early May that their breath came out in clouds, picking up the light from the small funeral pyre he and Dean had made together for Brother Luciano's leather satchel. For the last remains of the children he had brought back.

"Shut up about it, Sam. Only the Irish punch people at a funeral."

"I'm just saying..."

Dean turned to him and gave him a face. "Look, stop asking for it like some creepy masochist. It's pretty fucking simple. You drug me again and I'll kill you. We done?"

Sam felt himself smile through the short exhalation of breath that was half laugh, half resignation.

"Yeah, we're done."

Dean shifted his weight as he leaned against the hood of the Impala. Changing the subject.

"It's a crazy story, Sam."

"Yeah. Kinda feel like it was a messed up  _Alice in Wonderland_."

"But you don't remember all of it."

Sam took a deep breath. Paused. "No, I do. I mean, I remember everything I did, everything that happened in there, it's just...some of the images the boogeyman made me see. Those things are warped. Seem surreal."

"All the heaven and hell stuff." It was a statement.

"Yeah. Like, I remember the emotions, the...the intense  _fear_  of it all. And I feel like at some point I even knew what it all meant, but now? Now it just sits in my head like memories of a bad dream."

Dean looked over at him but didn't say anything right away.

"Sam, they were probably just for freaking you out enough to get you scared. That's the damn thing's MO.  _Was_  it's MO."

Sam liked the past tense, could see that even Dean was relieved to correct himself. But Sam wasn't so sure it was that simple. There was a point of revelation where Sam could hear things, see things...but maybe as a last gift or curse, the boogeyman took it with him.

"Yeah, you're probably right," is what he said, though, because there was enough going on, and enough done that it wasn't worth opening it up to set them both on edge.

"So that stuff Dad left for you worked. The ghost physics stuff."

Sam nodded, but he didn't tell Dean that in the afternoon at the motel, when he had woken up after Dean insisted on driving all night away from Osseo, he found a small tin soldier on his night stand. Just that. And Sam had no idea at all how it had come to him. It felt like a friendly farewell though. A message that maybe more kids had escaped that plane when he burned the house than he thought was possible.

Sam answered. "Might still be some areas in the theory to explore, though. 'More things in Heaven and Hell then are dreamt of in dad's philosophy.'"

Dean gave him a look. "What now?"

"Uh. Quote. From  _Hamlet_."

"Hamlet? You quote your breakfast?"

"What? No, it's Shakespeare." Sam huffed, but Dean's smirk proved Sam had walked right into that one, so he just went on quickly before Dean could savor more amusement at his expense playing the dumb guy. "I just mean that Dad was right on target, but there's still plenty of supernatural business. Plenty of mysteries."

"Yeah. At least one of them is wrapped up. Signed, sealed, delivered. To hell, hopefully. What do you think it meant when it said it was the 'first?'"

Sam took a deep breath, shook his head and shrugged at the same time he let the air out. "I got nothing there. I don't know. First monster? First creature? First planes walker? No clue."

"What about Brother Luciano's journal. Any ideas there?"

"Haven't had a chance to decipher it all. Maybe. But I doubt it. I mean, there's probably a lot of great stuff in it, but maybe the boogeyman is just going to be one of those mysteries that we never solve."

Dean tilted his head briefly, a nod of acceptance. "As long as it's dead, as long as we're done with it, I couldn't give a crap."

"Yeah, I'm with you there."

A few more moments of silence passed before Sam began again, quietly. "There is one mystery that's been solved." He thought of the letter in his back pocket. That letter that had given him so much peace. "I know why dad brought me to Osseo in the first place."

Dean turned to him, listening with intensity.

"I know why it all happened, and knowing what I know now, it's pretty ironic. But he didn't bring me there as bait, and he didn't bring me there to...sacrifice me to the boogeyman. None of that."

"Of course he didn't," Dean said forcefully, but it was a little too fast. Sam had to be careful because Dean seemed to have moved on from his guilt over Dad's death, his life for their father's soul, over the last several months, but Sam knew better. Dean had plenty of unresolved issues with their father even though, technically, Dean was the one who was with him in his last moments, heard his last words.

"So, what was the reason?" Dean continued more calmly after a second.

Sam took a deep breath. "Missouri wasn't the only psychic dad consulted about things after Mom died. Apparently, he talked to a quite a few, in several places. He knew things, a lot of things, about Yellow Eyes and...and me before he ever let on anything to us. He knew for a long time, Dean."

Dean sighed. His gaze went to the ground. "Yeah. I figured."

"Anyway, when he was in Louisiana he talked to a psychic named Franklin Mont Franc who gave dad his first shred of hope that things would turn out okay. This psychic told Dad that if he brought me to Osseo, I'd have a chance to change my fate. Was emphatic about it. Gave the dates we should be there. Said a different path opened up, one that would take me beyond the demon's influence."

Dean barked out a half laugh that was all despair.

"Yeah? Way to be fucking literal about it. If the boogeyman had managed to keep you, you'd be safe from Yellow Eyes, that's for sure."

Sam went on quickly, "But that's not how dad took it."

"Who's this psychic again? I'm gonna go fucking give  _him_ a new path..."

Sam nodded. "Yeaaaah, my thoughts ran similar, but I already checked it out. He died a few years ago in an apparent suicide."

"Well, that ain't suspicious."

"Exactly. The thing is, Dad didn't walk us in blind. He checked out Osseo, the date. Did his homework. Figured out the disappearances, the boogeyman, worked it like a case, and wasn't happy that I ended up being a target. But he actually did have a way to kill it, and he was pinning this one hope  _for_  me  _on_  me."

Dean made a sound that sounded half groan, half sigh.

"But of course, things didn't go as planned," Sam finished with a quiet brush of his foot over gravel.

"Yeah. See? I told you. This was my fault-"

"No, Dean, listen. The things I know now about the boogeyman? It tried to create psychics to listen in on Heaven and Hell, it could get in your head with one look, and I  _know_  it got to whatever psychic was feeding Sarah Winchester false info about the ghosts coming after her. Told her to build the Winchester house as some creepy funland."

"Get to the point, Sam."

"The point is the boogeyman  _used_  psychics, Dean. In fact, I think it's entirely plausible that the boogeyman used this Mont Blanc guy to get dad to bring me right to it. Dad died and didn't know about that particular psychic connection."

Dean bridled noticeably. "That supposed to make me feel better?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, Dad essentially walked me into a trap if my hunch is right. There's no way he could have known he was being used, and you knew what I was going through that night. You knew I wasn't ready--I was tired, I was scared. You were doing what you always did." Sam slid closer to Dean, pushed him with an elbow. "And if the boogeyman had taken me when I was nine? I would've died. You did save my life. Only the 14 years in between that day I told you to teach me how to fight and last night did I get the strength, the will, the knowledge, and the ability to win, to come back alive. And even then, I wouldn't have made it out of the motel room if you hadn't woken up and come get me. So, Dean, like you said, it's over. It's behind us both, and though the little kid in me will always be frustrated, mad, that I couldn't save Amber back then, she's okay now. She's okay, and so am I. Really. We're all absolved."

Dean looked up at him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"But what about the whole 'changing of your path' thing. That's why you went on this crusade in the first place."

"Part of it," Sam corrected.

"Okay, fine, part of it. But then if the boogeyman was just using this Mont Franc guy as his Pinocchio, then you get nothing. It was a sham, and Yellow Eyes is still out there and all that crap Dad worried about hasn't changed."

Sam shrugged. "Maybe. But maybe, in a roundabout way, I  _did_  change my path. I did this to fix something I failed to do. I had to. I  _was_  different before all of this, Dean. Maybe the act of persevering through it, winning, getting out alive  _has_  given me a new path."

Dean took a deep breath, seemed to be considering it.

"I don't know. This psychic stuff is like some VIP card to an exclusive club, and I don't get any of it. I just get to watch what it does to people, and, so far, I've seen nothing good."

"It's not the psychic abilities that make things good or bad, it's what I do with it. So I'm gonna keep positive. The boogeyman was the worst thing I ever faced to date. Maybe I leveled up. Maybe Yellow Eyes is in for the disappointment of a lifetime, whatever his plan is."

Dean turned to the side and bent down to the cooler. He pulled out two beers, cracked on, and handed it to Sam who readily took it.

"Well, I'll drink to that anyway." Dean said and took a long draw. Sam did likewise.

Both brothers turned their attention back to the blaze and were silent for several minutes.

Finally Dean raised his bottle to the golden glow. "Here's to the heroes."

Sam smiled, lifted his own bottle. "To Amber, who found ways to make the best out of the bad in life and even in death-who kept the faith even when she could have given up a long time ago."

A heartbeat passed and Sam summoned up the image of the girl in the pink nightgown. He hoped that wherever she was, she was finally truly happy. That all those kids were. His own future felt a little brighter for it.

Dean cleared his throat and broke the moment.

"What?" Sam asked.

"I was just thinkin'. Is it appropriate to pour out libations for minors?"

Sam did laugh at that. The ancient Greek tradition of pouring fine spirits in tribute over the graves of the beloved was something that had been passed down through their father in Hunter culture. The humor in Dean's question was bittersweet, though-neither one of them had had to toast a comrade in death who had died so young...

"Yeah, Dean. I don't think the Heaven Police are gonna care."

They poured out half the beer, both smiling.

When the fire was reduced to cinders, they pushed the dirt over it with their boots, got back into the Impala, and drove into the night.

Two nights later, Sam disappeared from The Sunnyside Diner and woke up alone in Cold Oak, South Dakota.

THE END

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author note:
> 
> Thank you so much for reading my, er, Supernatural novel. I hope you enjoyed it. To the people who've been there since the beginning, and especially those who commented and kept it going, THANK YOU! Couldn't have done it without you!
> 
> Also, if you read this story and enjoyed it, and you like the kind of Sam and Dean portrayed here, then don't lose heart. There IS more.
> 
> Agelade, my friend and beta and Sam to my Dean has been writing an exceptionally awesome Season 9 AU. She's a better writer than me, and the relationship between Dean and Sam is very similar to the one in this story. It's really worth checking out.
> 
> Also, she and I have collaborated on several stories that take place during Sam's early Stanford years and they are much fun and sometimes much angst.
> 
> Everything we write dovetails together and so we've pooled all of our stories together in a project we call "Lustraverse." You can visit her on fan fiction dot net as author "Agelade" or on Archive of Our Own under "Agelade" where you can find her work and the other stuff we've done for Lustraverse. 
> 
> Lustraverse is also a community on Livejournal.
> 
> Annnnnnnd we also have a Tumblr blog called Lustraverse as well.
> 
> If you've just read The Boogeyman, then you haven't gotten the whole story. Hopefully we'll see you over in Lustraverse soon! THANKS FOR READING! :D
> 
> -Caladrius


End file.
